MENASA+: Thresholds of Representation

Kavi Gupta presents _MENASA+: Thresholds of Representation._ Bringing together artists Alemeh Bagherian, Gordon Cheung, Michael Joo, Manish Nai, Sara Rahanjam, Shahpari Rahmani, Rewind Collective, Karim Abu Shakra, and Haya Zaidi from across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Asian diaspora—these artist's lived experiences of migration, hybridity, and gender, redefine what global contemporary art can be. This curatorial framework positions MENASA+ and Asian diasporic dialogues not as categories, but as interconnected conditions of making—translation, survival, inheritance, reinvention, and resistance. It reflects a belief that identity in art is not fixed but continuously negotiated across borders, languages, and histories of gendered power. At a time when geopolitics continues to compress complex identities into binaries of “us” and “them,” the art world has mirrored similar patterns of exclusion and invisibility. This presentation resists that logic. It centers practitioners—particularly female and femme-identifying artists from MENASA+ and Asian regions—whose voices have emerged from unforgiving cultural and political contexts, yet continue to embody resilience, autonomy, and creative power. Reflecting Kavi Gupta’s ongoing commitment to offering a platform for artists whose practices confront erasure, amplify unseen narratives, and celebrate the act of creation as an act of resistance, each work in the exhibition operates as both testimony and proposition, inviting viewers to ask who is seen, who is heard, and on whose terms. Through material, image, and form—In the voices of women and diasporic artists from MENASA+ and Asian communities, this presentation speaks of endurance and transformation—of making beauty and meaning amid constraint, of holding space for memory and for change. This exhibition was made possible with curatorial assistance from Narimon Safavi, an Iranian-American entrepreneur and cultural commentator; and Rosa Matinfar, curator and writer whose work focuses on contemporary art from the MENASA region.