Share the Mic: Amir H. Fallah’s CHANT

Join us for a conversation between artist Amir H. Fallah and matt dilling from Lite Brite Neon Studio, a beloved collective of craftspeople specializing in neon art, moderated by cultural historian Shiva Balaghi.
In his most recent collaborative work, Fallah has leveraged his art to keep public attention on protestors risking their lives in the fight for freedom in Iran. CHANT is a large-scale neon artwork that will be displayed on the front of Shulamit Nazarian Gallery at the intersection of La Brea and Melrose Avenues in Los Angeles. The work is a collaboration between Fallah and dilling, and was made possible by Fallah’s GoFundMe effort.
In Fallah’s words, “CHANT is a beacon for all those united in the struggle for freedom,” designed to hold public attention on Iran following the senseless murder of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the morality police.
Shiva Balaghi is a cultural historian specializing in the visual culture of the Middle East and its diasporas. She is academic coordinator of the Area Global Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously, she served as senior advisor to the president of the American University in Cairo for Arts and Cultural Programs and taught history and history of art at NYU and Brown University for nearly two decades.
matt dilling is a Queer art fabricator and the founding partner of Lite Brite Neon Studio. Since 1999, they have helped develop and fabricate luminous artworks for a number of public and private institutions worldwide, with a focus on work that speaks to and facilitates social justice, human rights, and the awakening of the best qualities of the human spirit. dilling resides on unceded Lenape land in what is currently known as the Catskills.
Amir H. Fallah received his BFA in fine art & painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and his MFA in painting at the University of California, Los Angeles. His work has been shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. In 2009, he was chosen to participate in the 9th Sharjah Biennial; in 2015, he received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. In 2019, Fallah was awarded the Northern Trust Purchase Prize at EXPO Chicago for his painting Calling on The Past. Fallah was recognized with the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and the Artadia grant in 2020. His work forms part of the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Miami; Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; and Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, China.
This program is co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies.