MENASA+: Thresholds of Representation | 14 February - 20 April 2026

Bringing together artists from across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the AAPI diaspora—these artist's lived experiences of migration, hybridity, and gender, redefine what global contemporary art can be.

This curatorial framework positions MENASA+ and AAPI dialogues not as categories, but as interconnected conditions of making—translation, survival, inheritance, reinvention, and resistance. It reflects a belief that identity in art is not fixed but continuously negotiated across borders, languages, and histories of gendered power.

At a time when geopolitics continues to compress complex identities into binaries of “us” and “them,” the art world has mirrored similar patterns of exclusion and invisibility. This presentation resists that logic. It centers practitioners—particularly female and femme-identifying artists from MENASA+ and AAPI regions—whose voices have emerged from unforgiving cultural and political contexts, yet continue to embody resilience, autonomy, and creative power.

Reflecting Kavi Gupta’s ongoing commitment to offering a platform for artists whose practices confront erasure, amplify unseen narratives, and celebrate the act of creation as an act of resistance, each work in the exhibition operates as both testimony and proposition, inviting viewers to ask who is seen, who is heard, and on whose terms. Through material, image, and form—In the voices of women and diasporic artists from MENASA+ and AAPI communities, this presentation speaks of endurance and transformation—of making beauty and meaning amid constraint, of holding space for memory and for change. It honors the courage to create within systems that deny freedom, asserting that art from these regions is not defined by trauma, but by imagination and hope.

This exhibition was made possible with curatorial assistance from Narimon Safavi, an Iranian-American entrepreneur and cultural commentator; and Rosa Matinfar, curator and writer whose work focuses on contemporary art from the MENASA region.

Narimon Safavi is a social entrepreneur and a media personality/arts commentator with appearances on WBEZ-NPR Chicago, BBC, PBS, El Diario Vasco, and Telecinco. He is the founder of Zaryab Art Labs, an innovative art center focused on the intersection of art and technology, to be located in a historic building in downtown Chicago and scheduled to open in February 2027.

Nari attended Illinois State University, studying Chemistry and Philosophy, with a keen interest in the Philosophy of Science. His current area of exploration is the epistemology of creativity and innovation. His community engagements have included board memberships at the Siskel Film Center (Art Institute of Chicago), Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, and the Latino Film Festival of Chicago, as well as a stint as a panelist at the National Endowment for the Arts in the USA for grant approvals. Narimon speaks English and Persian fluently and is conversant in Spanish and Azari Turkish.

Rosa Matinfar is an art curator, advisor, and critic whose practice bridges scholarly research, institutional engagement, and cultural strategy. She holds a Master’s degree in Art Studies from the University of Tehran, where her thesis examined the role of museums in legitimizing political ideology, and brings an interdisciplinary methodology shaped by earlier training in Molecular Biology.

Matinfar has held curatorial and advisory roles across museums, galleries, and private collections, including the Carpet Museum of Iran, where in 2025 she curated an exhibition integrating digital art with traditional carpet motifs, as well as ongoing consultancy work with the Anthropology Museum of Nowshahr and the National Carpet Museum of Iran. Her gallery experience includes curatorial and advisory positions at Ragadid Gallery, Nian Art Gallery, and Idea Gallery, where she has developed exhibitions, conducted art-historical and market research, and advised collectors on acquisition and collection-building. She has curated and co-curated international exhibition projects and is currently developing Chel-Negar: Unity in Multiplicity for the National Museum of Iranian Art.

Alongside her curatorial practice, Matinfar is an active art critic and researcher, publishing widely on contemporary and Middle Eastern art and contributing to institutional discourse through writing, research, and jury service.

Kavi Gupta amplifies voices of diverse and underrepresented artists to expand the canon of art history. Through innovative exhibitions, multimedia programming, and rigorous publications, we foster an evolving conversation among international communities about art and ideas.

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