AGNES Program: Open Secret features artists Parastoo Anoushahpour (19 + 20 January), Kriss Li (9 + 10 February), Sharlene Bamboat (9 + 10 March) and Sofía Gallisá Muriente (6 + 7 April). The series of screenings and workshops take its departure from Fred Moten’s words that “poetry investigates new ways for people to get together and do stuff in the open, in secret,” and evokes cinema’s capacity to condition spaces for gathering. The double maneuver of opacity and transparency inherent in cinema’s making sets the precedent for this sort of investigation embedded in collaboration. 

Parastoo Anoushahpour is an artist originally from Tehran now based in Toronto working predominantly with film, video and installation. She was an artist in residence at the Mohammad and Mahera Abu Ghazaleh Foundation (Jordan), Tabakalera International Center for Contemporary Art (Spain), Taipei Artist Village (Taiwan), and Banff Center for Arts & Creativity (Canada).

The Time That Separates Us, (Jordan/Palestine/Canada,  2022, 8MM and HD, 35 min) circles the story of Lot’s wife and its related sites of mythology, ancient salt-rock formations found doubled across a contested border. In the process, the Pillar of Salt becomes a portal through which to face the contemporary Jordan River Valley, its heavily militarized border and complex infrastructures of tourism, and the stigmatized realms of desire, sexuality, and gender encoded within this highly mediated political landscape.