Conversations at the Edge

04/15/2026

For her first Chicago appearance, Maryam Tafakory presents a live film performance of her new work, GOL[E] SORKH, on April 16 at the .

GOL[E] SORKH traces the censorship of the word gol, or “flower,” in the final tumultuous years of imperial Iran (1974–1979), just before the Islamic Revolution. Drawing on this history, Tafakory examines the role of women in leftist movements and their ultimate suppression by Iran’s pre- and post-revolutionary governments, as well as the CIA and MI6. Rooted in archival research, her work resists the register of documentary truth-telling, instead unfolding through poetic essay and collage.

AN EVENING WITH MARYAM TAFAKORY is one night only—tickets available at the link in our bio.

04/14/2026

“I try to imagine a new archive…to highlight stories and bodies that have been erased.” —Maryam Tafakory

Working at the intersection of cinema and live performance, Maryam Tafakory draws on imagery from post-revolutionary Iranian cinema, personal archives, and fragmentary materials to dissect concealed acts of erasure—of bodies, intimacies, and histories.

The 2024 Jarman Award–winning artist has presented her work at the Barbican Centre (London), BOZAR (Brussels), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (Los Angeles), among others. Her films have screened at major international festivals including the New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and have received numerous awards, including the Gold Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Tiger Short Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam.

An Evening with Maryam Tafakory
Thursday, April 16
Info + tickets at the link in bio

04/13/2026

04/09/2026

“I want these images to confess…” — Maryam Tafakory

In her multi–award-winning RAZEH-DEL, dense layers of inky newsprint and appropriated footage trace the story of ZAN, Iran’s first women’s newspaper—whose brief run in the late 1990s inspires two schoolgirls to imagine new realities. Amid saturated fields of amethyst, crimson, and amber, images of women emerge and dissolve—overlaid with letters of censorship and solidarity.

See the film at the Siskel Film Center as part of AN EVENING WITH MARYAM TAFAKORY—featuring a selection of the Jarman Award-winning artist’s recent films and a special live performance.

This is the final program in Conversations at the Edge’s spring 2026 season.

🎟 Info + tickets at the link in bio

03/16/2026

“Malena Szlam’s ALTIPLANO ranks among the most striking landscape films of recent years and calls for a revision of how we talk about landscape in cinema.”
—Dan Sullivan, Film Comment

Filmed in the Andean Mountains on the traditional lands of the Atacameño, Aymara, and Calchaquí-Diaguita peoples in northern Chile and northwest Argentina, ALTIPLANO unspools across a geological universe of ancestral salt flats, volcanic deserts, and colored lakes. Landscapes pulse and stutter, ground merges with sky, rocky minerals with cloud—expanding our sense of earth and time.

See the film March 26 with Malena Szlam in person in a one-of-a-kind evening of 35mm and 16mm films and live performance using analog technologies to reorient our perceptions of the natural world.

VOLCANOES, MOUNTAINS, FORESTS: MALENA SZLAM AND JIAYI CHEN
Thursday, March 26
Info + tickets at the link in bio

03/16/2026

“My work focuses on sensorial experience—how we perceive, how we imagine… I try to open up new ways of understanding our often-unknown connections to land.”

Chilean artist and filmmaker Malena Szlam brings her spectacular, award-winning films to Chicago Thursday, March 26 for VOLCANOES, MOUNTAINS, FORESTS: MALENA SZLAM AND JIAYI CHEN.

More information and tickets at the link in our bio.

Based in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang / Montreal, Szlam works across film, installation, and photography, exploring embodied perception and the material possibilities of analog film. Attentive to the geopolitics of natural phenomena, her recent projects engage geology, earth science, and volcanology.

Her work has screened internationally at the Toronto International Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, Jeonju International Film Festival, Cinéma du Réel, Open City Documentary Festival, and International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Recent group exhibitions include Energy Fields: Vibrations of the Pacific at Fulcrum Arts, Los Angeles and femmes volcans forêts torrents at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Solo exhibitions include Inexistent Time, Los Angeles Filmforum, and Infra— at SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montreal.

IMAGES: 1. Malena Szlam; 2. Detail from MERAPI, 2021; 3. Detail from ARCHIPELAGO OF EARTHEN BONES — TO BUNYA, 2024; 4. Malena Szlam, photo by Johan Legraie.

03/16/2026

Jiayi Chen’s luminous films and multi-projector performances attune viewers to forest ecologies, seasonal cycles, and the reciprocal relationships between flora, fauna, and land.

Originally from Chongqing in southwest China and now living between Chicago and Houston, the artist and filmmaker brings her films and expanded-cinema performances to the Thursday, March 26 for VOLCANOES, MOUNTAINS, FORESTS: MALENA SZLAM AND JIAYI CHEN.

More information and tickets at the link in our bio

Jiayi Chen is an artist, filmmaker, and projectionist working at the intersection of analog film, performance, and installation. Her practice explores perception, translation, and environmental attunement. Through expanded-cinema and photochemical film processes, Chen approaches filmmaking as a durational and relational act.

Her work has been exhibited and screened internationally at festivals and venues including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Cineteca Madrid, Fracto Experimental Film Encounter (Berlin), MONO NO AWARE (New York), Chicago Cultural Center, Harkat Studios (Mumbai), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and Anthology Film Archives (New York).

IMAGES: 1. Jiayi Chen; 2. Detail, SEE THROUGH THE HOLLOWED BLUE HELLEBORE, 2026; 3. Detail, MOUNDS ABOVE THE EARTH, 2025.

02/24/2026

For her program this Thursday, February 26, Kioto Aoki will be joined by award-winning musicians Jamie Kempkers and Robbie Lynn Hunsinger, performing a live, improvisatory score alongside her films and 35mm slide performance.

Jamie Kempkers is a Chicago-based cellist whose practice centers improvisation and compositional experimentation across collaborative and solo work. Active in the city’s improvised music scene since 2001, he has worked with Tatsu Aoki, Jonathan Chen, Yoshinojo Fujima, and Dawei Wang, and is currently a member of Aoki’s MIYUMI Project and a contributor to experimental dance performances.

Robbie Lynn Hunsinger is a conservatory-trained oboist and multi-instrumentalist improviser performing on Eastern and Western reeds, whistles, and avant-fiddle. She led the Aoki–Hunsinger–Jarman Trio album and co-leads a duet recording with Tatsu Aoki. Alongside her musical practice, she works as a visual artist and creative technologist across responsive media performance, interactive installation, and intermedia composition.

Find out more at saic.edu/cate, tickets at the link in our bio.