Artistic Exchange Residencies 2023
Reza Mirabi
Reza Mirabi (Iran/Germany, 1988) is an artist whose practice spans visual art, choreography, storytelling, and seed-keeping, focusing on ecological and socio-political projects in Europe and the SWANA region. Graduating with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Mumbai in 2012 and later completing the DAS Choreography master's programme in Amsterdam in 2021, Mirabi's work is rooted in the belief that every place, being, and material inherently tells a story.
Rather than imposing narratives, Mirabi embraces diverse forms of listening that allow us to integrate ourselves into the more-than-human narratives surrounding us. This approach transforms listening into both a choreographic and political practice, serving as a channel for collective movement, the building of new cosmologies, and the pursuit of individual and systemic change.
Mirabi's work attempts the impossible dance - confronting the crises of our time collectively and yet reminding each other of the critical role of imagination in cultivating our resistance.
Seed Keeping in Times of Crises
Artistic Exchange Residency at MDT
"In October 2022, I saw a graffiti in a little side street in Meydoon-e Shush, right outside my grandmother’s house - quietly asserting the critical potential of seeds, transcending botanical realms. The graffiti written just days after the killing of the 22-year old Kurdish Woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini, reads "آزادی کاشتنه ما هم تخمشو داریم" (azadi kaashtanie. ma ham tokhmesho darim), translated to “Freedom needs to be planted, and we have the seeds.”
Like numerous others in Iran, this graffiti functions as a seed—a transdisciplinary seed, planted in one medium, on concrete, sprouting in another, igniting movement and choreographing change.
Inspired by this graffiti, my research at MDT looked into the practice of Seed Keeping in Times of Crises in which I present 9 seeds investigating choreography's role as an ecological and political practice amidst crises.
How can seeds inform movement, embodiment, and narrative within artistic, ecological, and decolonial frameworks, and how can choreographic and dance practice enable us to move through the world ecologically amidst our current climate (of) crises?"