Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

is an artist, poet, and cultural technologist whose work explores the interplay between aesthetic and political valences in the public domain. Solo/group exhibitions, performances, and expanded publications include Nottingham Contemporary, Pioneer Works, Parasol Unit, 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, Circumference, Brooklyn Public Library, among others. She has served as artist-in-residence at Trélex Poetry Residency (France), Sonic Acts (Netherlands), Residency Unlimited (U.S.A.), Wysing Arts Centre (U.K), Industry Lab (U.S.A.), Delfina Foundation (U.K.), Darat al Funun (Jordan), among others. 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 postdoctoral Fulbright and Visiting Professorship at Birzeit University. She was a Lecturer at New York University and Northeastern University from 2019 to 2021; at Harvard University from 2012 to 2017; and has served as visiting faculty/studio artist at Valand Academy, Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University, Bard Microcollege, among others. Book publications include a translation of Waly Salomão’s Algaravias: Echo Chamber (Ugly Duckling Presse), nominated for a PEN Award for Poetry in Translation; The Distancing Effect (BlazeVOX); and Bio (Inventory Press). Artist books include Apparent Horizon 2 (Bonington Gallery); Alphabet of an Unknown City (Belladonna*), Secret Catalan Poem (The Elephants), Mohammad Wikipedia Book (Recess), Dictionary of Night, co-authored with Mirene Arsanios (Ashkal Alwan), and Oil News 1989-2020, co-authored with Sam Lavigne (Sonic Acts). Her translation of Salomão’s Border Fare is forthcoming in 2024 (World Poetry Books). She is Editor Emeritus of The New Inquiry, where she previously served as Editor-at-Large. She founded South/South, cited as "one to watch" by the Los Angeles Times, and authored 500+ posts independently between 2009-2012 and at TNI between 2012-2023. She is the founder and principal of Oil Research Group (ORG), a one-woman collective exploring coterminous oil and data environments at the heart of "data is the new oil." ORG regularly collaborates with artists, scientists, economists, indigenous environmentalists, and host art institutions. She lives and works in New York.

South/South

A Saudi Arabia Reader

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviFebruary 27, 2014

American imperialism occupied the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, exploited our soil, set up the Dhahran Air Base where atomic bombs are stored

South/South

The Thick Blue Line

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviFebruary 1, 2014

No charges against police officer. No charges against police officer. No charges against police officer.

South/South

And Other Weary Geographies

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviJanuary 13, 2014

Is this how you "do" a book announcement?

South/South

Everything is a Target—Full Text of Interview with Peter Galison

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviJanuary 4, 2014

There are no shelters. There is no fortress.

South/South

The Year of Risk

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviJanuary 1, 2014

“Inspiration needs the ground / of dissatisfaction,” you write / On the back of an airline magazine.

South/South

Five Questions with Harryette Mullen

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviDecember 29, 2013

I belong to myself.

Uncategorized

Everything Is a Target

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviDecember 12, 2013

An interview of physicist and filmmaker Peter Galison by Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

South/South

Chronophilia / Chronophobia

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviDecember 2, 2013

Script and audio for a live performance. Blindfolds not included.

South/South

The Thick Blue Line

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviNovember 25, 2013

No charges brought against officer. No charges brought against officer. No charges brought against officer.

South/South

Untitled (From a Journal Kept in Tehran)

By Maryam Monalisa GharaviOctober 29, 2013

In Esfehan, a little girl who lost her mother stood next to a soldiers’ barrack. With one wet eye toward the uniformed guards behind her, she yelled, “I am scared of the police. I am scared of the police!”