Rira* is a project recalling the instrumental work and achievements of 9 Iranian Environmental Scientists, who were arrested on false allegations in January 2018, 7 of whom are still in Evin prison, Tehran.
The project is two-folded, it raises awareness about Iran’s wildlife and natural heritage, as well as the diversity of activities by distinguished members of Iran’s environmentalists who are widely respected among old and new generations of researchers and the locals alike, and whose research and teaching, involves both local and international projects.
*From Nima Youshij’s poem Rira. Nima is known as the father of modern Persian poetry, his works are distinguished by their formal novelty and strong connection and presence of nature. Rira is a sound that calls.
About the Curator:
Aras Amiri
Aras Amiri (she/her) is an Iranian art producer and writer. Since 2009 she has worked as an independent
writer for art magazines and curator with exhibitions in London such as Recalling the Future:
Post-revolutionary Iranian Art, and Breakfast in Tehran: Representation of Women in Contemporary Iranian
Art. She worked as the Art Manager for Iran at the British Council for over 5 years, where she developed
collaborative projects with artists and cultural institutions across the UK in music, theatre, literature, film,
architecture and visual arts. These include Voicelessness at Edinburgh International Festival, The Book of
Tehran: A City in Short Fiction (Comma Press), Underline a bilingual online and print magazine, touring
composer Jem Finer’s Longplayer to 11 cities across Iran, film programmes such as Abbas Kiarostami Early
Works and with BFI, Around the World in 17 Films: The Cinema of Childhood. She was a political prisoner
in Iran from 2018-2022 due to her role at the British Council and where she completed her MA philosophy
dissertation on the Truth Content of Art and its Relation to Freedom. She recently co-founded The Moving
Arts Collective in Jersey where she is based.
Dr Dani Admiss
Dr Dani Admiss (she/her) is a British-Assyrian Iranian independent curator and researcher based in Edinburgh. She uses social practices to develop projects with everyday communities to voice their stories and reimagine narratives of science and technology. In 2020 she founded Sunlight Doesn’t Need a Pipeline, an art, community learning and climate justice project exploring just transition in the arts. With a coalition of art workers, agitators, dream weavers, growers and caregivers, she has co-created a holistic decarbonisation plan for art workers. Admiss has curated projects and published across the UK, Europe and internationally. She is an Artangel Making Time resident (2023) and was a Stanley Picker Fellow (2020). She has curated numerous exhibitions, conferences, workshops, and edited books, in the UK, the EU and internationally. She wrote her PhD in Curatorial Practice and World-Making with an AHRC grant and is a visiting tutor in Design Research at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
With the upmost thanks to the generous sponsorship and support by Greenpeace UK and the University of Edinburgh, including the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH).
