Seven Portraits – Unbound exhibition tour
Join artist research Sofi Basseghi, collaborator Salme Geransar and Curator Linda Short at the State Library of Victoria for an artwork talk of Seven Portraits – Unbound (2025) is a multichannel video installation that explores notions of freedom expressed by Persian-speaking female poets across the past millennium, interpreted through performance.
Drawing on and reimagining Nizami Ganjavi’s Haft Peykar (Seven Portraits) and 16th-century Persian miniature illuminations of this tale from the State Library of Victoria’s collection, the work weaves fact and fiction to reflect on women’s voices in history while resonating with contemporary socio-political contexts.
RegisterTime: 9am – 10am
Meet at the Sir Redmond Barry Statue
State Library Victora Forcourt
Photo by Peter Foster
Supported by
CAST
Engagement: Archives are Hot!Contemporary Art and Social Transformation (CAST) produces art research that critically engages with social and public spheres with a particular interest in how artistic practices intersect with issues of equity, access and democracy.
The research group is a hub for critical thinking, collaboration and the exchange of ideas, knowledge dissemination, practice-led artistic research and socially-engaged art practice. We work to strengthen art projects on creative care, ecology, education, queer(y)ing practice, migration and mobility, social practice and public art. CAST engages on local and international levels by collaborating with practitioners, communities, industry and government partners.
Across all of our research, CAST recognises the importance of Indigenous and First Nations voices, perspectives and agency. We believe that Indigenous ways of knowing and being are central to the fabric of contemporary life and we acknowledge the sovereignty of our First Peoples.