Crossings: Kaleh Ziyarat

Written and directed by Rouzbeh Akhbari as part of the Alserkal Arts Foundation Research Grant 2025–27, the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Akhbari moderated by Yalda Bidshahri on his investigation into the economic and social borderscapes along the 7,200 km International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), tracing the intersections of global trade and informal economies between the ports of Musandam in Oman and Astara in Azerbaijan.

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Bio
Rouzbeh Akhbari is an artist, filmmaker, and geographer based between Toronto and Lisbon. Working across film and installation, his practice investigates the political and ecological entanglements of trade, infrastructure, and human geography. Akhbari’s solo projects and collaborations with Felix Kalmenson as Pejvak have been exhibited internationally at institutions such as Mercer Union, Toronto; Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp; and The Power Plant, Toronto. Festival presentations include FIDMarseille, RIDM, Media City Film Festival and the São Paulo International Film Festival. Akhbari holds an MFA in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and is a PhD candidate in its Department of Geography and Planning.

Yalda Bidshahri is an Iranian writer and curator based in the United Arab Emirates. She creates communal spaces of imagination and freedom through exhibitions, programmes and texts developed in close collaboration with artists and practitioners across disciplines. Her work is shaped by a commitment to practices that challenge systems of oppression and foreground liberating ways of seeing, feeling and being. In 2024, she curated In your dreams at Bayt AlMamzar, Dubai. Her writing has appeared in publications including Frieze, ArtReview Asia, ArtAsiaPacific and Canvas. She holds an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London.