ARTISTS

Bahareh Khoshooee

Baxter St. Residency (2019)

Bahareh Khoshooee is a multidisciplinary artist born in Tehran, Iran in 1991, the year the Internet was made available for unrestricted commercial use. In her work she explores the underlying tension between reality and fiction, confabulation and manipulation, false memories and alternative facts. She attended Skowhegan School of Art and Painting in 2018, received her MFA in Studio Art from the University of South Florida in 2017, and her BA in Industrial Design from the University of Tehran in 2014. Khoshooee’s solo exhibition was on view at Baxter St in November 2020. She has presented her work at the Orlando Museum of Art (Orlando), NADA MIAMI 2018, Elsewhere (New York), Housing (New York), and Rawson Projects (New York). She has been included in various group exhibitions including at The Immigrant Artist Biennial (New York), C24 Gallery (New York), Museum of Photography (Stockholm), 2018 Taiwan Annual (Taipei), Fajr International Film Festival 2018 (Tehran), and the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Artnet News, Vice, The Metro, and The Creators Project.

Lurking Variable !=  draws inspiration from Khoshooee’s first-hand experience as an Iranian immigrant entering the United States. She spots fear and bias as the lurking variables that are overlooked in current systems of data analysis for immigration policies and racial profiling. Khoshooee’s vision is a stark contrast to the demoralizing experience immigrants face. AVATAR, The Department of Homeland Security’s intelligent control system, scrutinizes travelers at border crossing in order to detect “mal-intent” based on biometric cues like the changes in the subject’s posture, eye movements, and voice during short interviews. In this exhibition, Khoshooee replaces immigration officers with virtual AI social workers to subvert the power structures of border control and suggest an alternative rooted in trust and vulnerability.