Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

is an artist, poet, and theorist whose work explores the interplay between aesthetic and political valences in the public domain. Exhibitions, performances, and expanded publications include Nottingham Contemporary, Pioneer Works, Serpentine Cinema, Framer Framed, Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Art Dubai, New Museum, Pacific Film Archive, Sonic Acts, Triple Canopy, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, The Poetry Project, Women and Performance, The White Review, Art in America, The Literary Review, Asymptote, among others. She was previously an artist-in-residence at Wysing Arts Centre (U.K), Industry Lab (U.S.A.), Delfina Foundation (U.K.), Darat al Funun (Jordan), and Mansion (Lebanon). She completed a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Film & Visual Studies at Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Film/Video at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, and held a Fulbright U.S. Scholar/Visiting Professorship at Birzeit University. She was a lecturer at Harvard University from 2013 to 2017, and has served as a visiting artist/lecturer at New York University, Valand Academy, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University, among others. Book publications include a translation of Waly Salomão’s Algaravias: Echo Chamber (Ugly Duckling Presse), nominated for a 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation; the poetry volume The Distancing Effect (BlazeVOX); the artist publication Apparent Horizon 2 (Bonington Gallery); the chapbook Alphabet of an Unknown City (Belladonna*); and in 2018, Bio (Inventory Press). She was editor at The New Inquiry between 2012 and 2017, and is author of the open text South/South.

South/South

Grapefruit Your Man

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviMay 22, 2018

See to it that no parts of him go wasted

South/South

Alphabet of an Unknown City (N-Z)

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviApril 2, 2018

I dwell frequently on the notion that the male body expands and the female body contracts in public space

South/South

Alphabet of an Unknown City (A-M)

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviMarch 31, 2018

It’s beginning to be impossible to write about how impossible it is to write about love

South/South

Secret Catalan Poem

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviMarch 29, 2018

The dark, heavy energy of paranoia, fear, and defense; the protective nature of shelter, housing, and land re-appropriation

South/South

Canceled Message (Part Three)

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviMarch 16, 2018

How to erase yourself (almost) completely

South/South

Routine Repairs & Earth & Dust

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviMarch 1, 2018

This is that old N.Y. dread—the frenetic running, the bleak refrigerator contents, no TIME for deep thinking or seeing friends, et. etc.—& that dread hasn’t died down yet.