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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sima Shahverdi is an Iranian architect and vocalist based in Brooklyn. She holds a B.Arch from the Art University of Tehran, an M.Arch I from the University of Tehran, and an M.Arch II from UCLA’s Suprastudio program under Greg Lynn, where she collaborated with Boeing, Bot & Dolly, UCLA’s IDEAS Robotics Lab, and Cirque du Soleil. Her professional work spans architectural design, fabrication, and process development at offices including AI SpaceFactory, Why Architecture, Kevin Daly Architects, and Kreysler & Associates.

Alongside her architectural practice, Sima is a self-taught vocalist and co-founder of Koubeh, a Brooklyn-based band drawing from Iranian folk traditions while developing original work. Koubeh’s single “Kook” became a breakout release, and the band has performed across the U.S. at venues including Nublu 151 and Nublu Classic in New York City, completing a sold-out West Coast run in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Scottsdale. Her current work brings these two practices together – architecture and music – into an integrated, multidisciplinary performance rooted in Iranian cultural memory.

Guest artist: Nima Farzaneh

Nima is an architectural designer and researcher in the musical and architectural acoustics domain, working toward a Ph.D. at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture and M.S. in landscape architecture from Iran. In 2010 he moved to the U.S. and studied at Pratt Institute’s post-professional architecture M.S. program focused on computation and design. After practicing architecture in New York City from 2011 to 2019, he went to RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) to specialize in architectural acoustics. His research interest is primarily the study of acoustics in Iran’s historical architectural spaces and its correlation with the region’s aural traditions, rituals, and music. Having an interest in working with new media, he incorporates technologies such as virtual acoustics, VR, and immersive experience for recreating architectural spaces and space-based musical experiences.

Visual Art Exhibition: BĀZ-TĀB

BĀZ-TĀB (meaning reflection) is a body of work rooted in the architectural memory of Iran. Each piece begins as a large-scale hand drawing of a specific Iranian site – a courtyard, a dome, an arched passage – built up gradually in charcoal, documented frame by frame, and brought to life as an animated drawing. Three-dimensional paper sculptures grow out of the drawings, collapsing the boundary between image and object. Sound mirrors the spatial and emotional quality of each place. Together, the drawing, moving image, and sound aim to recreate something closer to how we actually remember a place: not as a photograph, but as a dream – fragmentary, layered, and alive.

The performance proposed for Red Poppy takes this further. Two parallel walls become the interior faces of an Iranian house – one the tabestān-neshin, the summer room, one the zemestān-neshin, the winter room. The audience sits at the center, where the courtyard would be. We are Iranians, scattered across cities, each carrying the last memories of a place we can no longer easily return to. My memories are the architectural spaces I walked through as a student – the hum of people under a dome, a voice carrying across a courtyard, the cool of wind descending through a badgir. In this performance, we gather at the howz. We sit by the water. We look up at the sky. We let ourselves miss Iran – together, out loud, held by sound and image and each other.

This is not documentation. It is not nostalgia. It is the act of remembering as a collective, bodily, present-tense experience. We become part of the house. The house becomes part of us.

Sunday, April 19, 2026
Time: 6pm – 8pm  
Admission: FREE, Donation encouraged

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