Pejvak: If Need Be
Book launch, reading and discussion with the authors Rouzbeh Akhbari and Felix Kalmenson (Fellow)
As part of the Focus Weeks 2025, Fellow Felix Kalmenson invites the Innsbruck audience to explore their multifaceted and artistically intuitive engagement with the theme of water scarcity. Together with Rouzbeh Akhbari, they form the artist duo Pejvak, whose in-depth research and artistic practice have culminated in a book that will be presented and discussed at this event.
The book If Need Be presents a constellation of stories about water scarcity in the arid regions of Central Asia, ancient Persia, and the American Great Plains. Pejvak strings together a series of hallucinatory events involving artificial glaciers, dams and other human attempts to bring water under control. Giving equal weight to gossip, legend and historical fact, Pejvak takes the role of an unreliable narrator, situating the struggle for water within the battle for the historical record.
This publication was made as a continuation of the eponymous exhibition by Pejvak at Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, Hasselt, Belgium (2021).
Text: Felix Kalmenson
Pejvak: If Need Be
2024, Publisher: Building Fictions, Amsterdam;
316 pages, 300 × 230 × 20 mm
Access Info:
Online: The event is hybrid and will be held in English. You can either attend in person at Künstler*innenhaus Büchsenhausen or follow the event online via Zoom. The call will be enabled with automatic closed captions in English. The Zoom link will be provided after registration via Eventbrite.
Onsite: Unfortunately, the space in Innsbruck is not wheelchair accessible. You can attend the event in person at Künstler*innenhaus Büchsenhausen. Rouzbeh Akhbari will attend via Zoom call. The call will be enabled with automatic closed captions in English. The bathrooms are used as gender neutral. Chairs with backs, arms and floor seating is all available. We have plenty of space to store mobility devices of all kinds. There is a low sensory space available.
Bio:
Pejvak is the long-term collaboration between Felix Kalmenson and Rouzbeh Akhbari (since 2014). Through their multivalent, intuitive approach to research and living they find themselves in a convergence and entanglement with like-minded collaborators, histories and various geographies. Their work has been exhibited at international museums and galleries including; Villa Arson (France), Van Abbemuseum (Netherlands), MAC VAL (France), M HKA (Belgium), Z33 (Belgium) and Si Shang Art Museum (China). They were long-listed for the prestigious Sobey Art Award in 2023.
Their films have been shown in numerous international festivals including at São Paulo International Film Festival, Tampere Film Festival, Doclisboa, Sharjah Film Platform, Kasseler Dokfest, Arkipel Jakarta International Documentary Experimental Film Festival, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival and Media City Film Festival, winning awards including the Prix George at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (2020) and the Video Art and Experimental Film at the Tirana International Film Festival (2024).
Felix Kalmenson (they) is an artist and filmmaker whose practice navigates film, installation, video and writing. Kalmenson submits to the cadence of a poem, always in flux. They have exhibited internationally including at: Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Villa Arson (Nice), M HKA (Antwerp), MAC VAL (Vitry-sur-Seine), Z33 (Hasselt), Kim? CAC (Riga), Nida Art Colony (Nida). Kalmenson’s films have been screened at numerous festivals, including: Mostra São Paulo International Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montreal, Vancouver International Film Festival, Arkipel, Doclisboa, Sharjah Film Platform, Kasseler Dokfest. The awards won by their films include the Prix George at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, in 2020. For the past decade, Kalmenson has collaborated with Rouzbeh Akhbari under the name Pejvak. They were research fellows at Jan van Eyck Academie (2020–21), as well as at M HKA Antwerp, and Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, under the auspices of L’Internationale (2021‒22).
www.felixkalmenson.com
Location
Künstler*innenhaus Büchsenhausen