'From Here to There: Practice, Distance, and Self-Positioning' with Julia Cimafiejeva, Hiwa K, and Farahnaz Sharifi, moderated by Azar Mahmoudian

Rather than approaching the topic abstractly, the discussion focuses on lived experience: how relocations are perceived, processed, and translated into creative work. The conversation explores how changing environments influence one’s relationship to place, audience, and the self. What does it mean to continue working elsewhere, far from home and political conflicts? How does distance reshape perceptions of one’s former home, and what new forms of attention, responsibility, or detachment emerge in the process?

The panel also addresses the emotional dimensions of migration—feelings of disorientation, freedom, restriction, or redefinition—and how these manifest in various artistic practices.

By bringing together perspectives from literature, visual arts, and film, the panel explores whether these experiences are similar across disciplines or give rise to distinct forms of response.

Julia Cimafiejeva is a Belarusian writer and translator. She is the author of six poetry collections in Belarusian and the non-fiction book *Minsk Diary* (in English). Her U.S. debut, *Motherfield: Poems & Belarusian Protest Diary* (2022), was shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Most recently published in German: *Ich zerschneide die Geschichte. Lyrik und Collagen* (2025) and *Blutkreislauf* (2025). In 2020, she participated in the protests in Belarus and has since been living in exile in Europe. She was a fellow of the DAAD Berlin Artists-in-Residence Program (2025) and a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy (2026).

Hiwa K is an artist born in Kurdistan, Iraq, who lives and works in Berlin and in international contexts. In his practice, he combines sculpture with film, performance, and music, addressing questions of memory, migration, knowledge transfer, and informal pedagogy. His works have been shown worldwide in museums and at biennials, including the Venice Biennale (2015) and documenta 14 (2017). He has received numerous awards, including the Arnold Bode Prize. Since April 2026, he has been a professor of sculpture at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK).

Farahnaz Sharifi is an Iranian filmmaker and author who now lives in Germany. If not the first, she is certainly among the early voices in Iranian cinema to use personal and family archives for storytelling, transforming them from private into collective history. Her latest film, *My Stolen Planet*, premiered in 2024 in the Berlinale Panorama section, was nominated for the European Film Academy Award, and has won over 25 prizes. She is currently working on a new film project as well as her second book.

Azar Mahmoudian is an independent curator and educator based in Tehran and elsewhere. Her current practice explores collective and self-organized forms of learning, as well as questions of anonymity within cultural practices.

IN ENGLISCH