SCOTLAND
Calling all Iranian artists:
Edinburgh Iranian Festival Art Exhibition 2015
The Edinburgh Iranian Festival (EIF) is a non-political showcase for world-class Iranian culture, as well as for bands and artists working both in and outside Iran.
Applications are welcomed from artists based in the UK and other countries at all stages of their careers. Artworks must be created by an Iranian artist or inspired by Iran. The 2015 multi artist exhibition will take place at Summerhall.
Exhibition title: Artists are invited to respond to the title of Perception
Categories: Video, installation, multi-media, painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture
Eligibility:
Judges for this exhibition are: Janet Rady, Morteza Nematollahi, Gohar Dashti, and Helia Darabi
Prize: There will be a £1000 festival art prize for most promising submission, plus an acquisition award that will guarantee a purchase of artwork.
Completed application forms and supporting material to [email protected] by October 24 2014
For further information, please visit http://www.ediranfest.co.uk/
The deadline is Friday 24 October 2014 at 17:00.
LOS ANGELES
Calling Iranian Artists
Focus Iran: Contemporary Photography and Video
Beginning on Monday, July 21, the Craft & Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) and Farhang Foundation are opening the call for submissions for the international juried exhibition Focus Iran: Contemporary Photography and Video. The exhibition is an opportunity to expose and feature emerging and mid-career photographers and media artists from around the world. Artists 18 years of age and older are invited to apply between July 21 and September 21, 2014. There is no entry fee to participate, and submissions will be accepted through the free online service CaFÉ at www.callforentry.org.
The complete rules of submission can be found at www.farhang.org/focusiran
AUSTRALIA
Iranian Artist in
Residence at BRAG
Hossein Valamanesh is in Bundaberg as the artist in residence at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery. The Iranian-born Australian artist has had his artwork exhibited across Australia and the world over the years, with his art heavily influenced by his Iranian heritage as well as his connection to Australia.
Valamanesh’s installation, After Rain, will mark the fourth installation in The Vault, as part of the Literary Notions installation series.
“After Rain was inspired by one of the scenes from the play When the Rain Stops Falling, where a tree comes from above and stays within the scene for a number of minutes,” he said.
Valamanesh’s work is influenced by his position as an Iranian-born Australian and deals with the common ground between cultures as well as aspects of displacement and travel. Philosophy and spirituality are also essential to his work, particularly the poetry and traditions of Sufism.
After Rain can be viewed until August 17 at BUNDABERG REGIONAL ART GALLERY
Contact 4130 4750 or www.brag-brc.org.au
MUMBAI
Art Show Explores
Abstract Painting
Curated by Oxford based British Jane Neal, Between Worlds features works by international artists Ali Banisadr, Marius Bercea, Angel Otero and Fiona Rae at Galerie ISA. All four artists explore the territory between abstraction and figuration, and each enjoys the physicality 
of painting and its process.
Ali Banisadr is a famous Iranian born American artist, whose works are exhibited in many museums over the globe. He has also made his name at a young age for being one of the most important Iranian-American artists of his generation.
Says gallery owner Ashwin Thadani, “If archaeology is about exposing the hidden, then painting is the ideal ground for its application. The medium involves the building up of strata — the textured layering of
personal and collective memories; interplaying with fiction; intertwining real and virtual. The ‘hidden’ is contained in the visible; the forgotten or imagined often resurrected through the process of painting.
Sometimes artists like to play with invisibility using paint to create emotional as well as physical contexts, at other times they seek to convey a haptic sensibility through powerfully physical abstraction. The issue of the unseen, or partially uncovered and what it might contain or mask, is particularly resonant for all these painters working today. Though each is distinctly different, they share in common the ability to convey the tension between what is visible on the surface and what might lie beneath.”
Between Worlds can be viewed at Galerie ISA, 27- Great Western Building, 1st Floor, S Bhagatsingh Road, Opposite Lion Gate, Fort until September 20, 11 am to 7 pm.
LOS ANGELES
“Local Not Local” Exhibits Arab & Iranian California Designers-Artists
From a design 
perspective, what do we really know about the Arab world, or Iraq’s neighbor, Iran? A window into these cultures, which use the Arabic script for writing and design, opened in Los Angeles on June 26, 2014, when LOCAL NOT LOCAL, a modern collection of contemporary expression, brought Arabic and Iranian typography and calligraphy to the Inside/Outside Gallery at the Levantine Cultural Center. In LOCAL NOT LOCAL, co-curators Maece Seirafi and Pouya Jahanshahi present a collection of award-winning Arab and Iranian designers who demonstrate the creative possibilities and expressions that lurk in their native alphabets.
LOCAL NOT LOCAL Presents New Work of Arab & Iranian Artists and Graphic Designers at the Inside/Outside Gallery until August 29, 2014.
(From levantinecenter.org)