NADA | Levon Kafafian, Fatemeh Kazemi, and Levani
Presented at NADA New York 2025
May 7–11, 2025 (see fair hours below)
Starrett-Lehigh Building
601 West 26th St, NYC

For the 11th edition of NADA New York, CUE Art presents a collaborative altar by Levon Kafafian, Fatemeh Kazemi, and Levani of the group exhibition The Bride Has Gone to Pick Flowers, curated by Lila Nazemian. 

Through multidisciplinary practices, the artists delve into the rich tapestry of rituals from the Caucasus region, reimagining these traditions through a speculative and queer lens. The work on view at NADA takes the form of a new collaborative installation: an altar with elements from all three artists. It positions cultural traditions from the artists’ homelands of Armenia, Iran, and Georgia that are in constant flux rather than static. 

The artists create spaces for rituals from these cultures to be shaped by the dynamic exchange of ideas and the porous nature of boundaries. In various ways, the artists contemplate cultural evolution through self and communal reflection, considering how their shared customs—many informed by pre-Abrahamic beliefs such as Zoroastrianism—became intertwined with later religious and cultural practices to shape the rituals prevalent in the ceremonies of both home countries and diasporic communities. They also consider the present and future by reorienting, speculating, dreaming, and—crucially—queering inherited rituals in ways that embrace or reintroduce notions of fluidity and exchange.

Read more about the artists and their work below, and learn more about NADA New York here.

About the Artists
Levon Kafafian is a weaver who works the narrative threads of costume, artifact, ritual, and installation into stories about possible worlds and potential futures. Treating woven cloth as portals into these other worlds, Kafafian generates texts infused with future ancestral practice, hybridity, and magic. Their current work channels the world of Azadistan out of the Armenian diasporic imaginary toward the forthcoming graphic novel Portal Fire.

Based in Detroit, Kafafian holds a BFA in Fiber from the College for Creative Studies and a BA in Anthropology from Wayne State University (2014). They co-led a seven-week public educational weaving program in partnership with Trapholt Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark (2022), and they regularly lecture and teach workshops across the U.S. Kafafian has exhibited their work at notable institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Stamps Gallery at the University of Michigan, and the Arab American National Museum. They are the recipient of numerous grants, including the Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum Grant (2021), Creative Armenia Spark Grant (2021), the Red Bull Arts Microgrant (2020), the Rauschenberg Foundation SEED Grant (2016) and the Knight Art Challenge Award (2016). They have participated in residencies at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (2023) and the Arab American National Museum (2019).

Fatemeh Kazemi فاطمه کاظمی  (she/they, b. 1992, Tehran)—also known as Afimoh—is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose practice spans material fabrication, fiction writing, archiving, filming, curating, organizing, and hosting. Her work engages with themes of communal grief or غم (/gham/), underground economies, kitsch Iranian visual culture, ritual, and subculture. Developed through conversation and community-oriented collaborations, her approach is deeply rooted in collective experiences. 

Kazemi earned a BFA in Painting from the University of Tehran (2014) and an MFA in Studio Art from Syracuse University (2024). Her work moves fluidly across worlds, blending installation, lens-based media, and the poetic flow of creative writing. She has exhibited at Parallel Circuit Space (Tehran), SUB Community (Çanakkale), Ruschman Gallery (Chicago), Navel LA (Los Angeles), Smack Mellon (New York), and Bayt Al Mamzar (Dubai). Her experimental films have been screened at the London Short Film Festival, CulturalHub (New York), LUX Book Fair (London), Dresden Film Festival, Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse), and Foundry By Emaar (Dubai), among other venues.

Levani (Levan Mindiashvili, b. Tbilisi, Georgia) is a transdisciplinary artist who works at the interstices of art, contemporary science, ecology, and spirituality. Ze hold an MFA from IUNA Buenos Aires National University and BFA from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. Levani has had solo exhibitions at Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space; Artists Alliance Inc.; Marisa Newman Projects; the National Museum of Georgia; NARS Foundation, and the Silk Museum, Tbilisi, among others. Zir work has been included in group exhibitions at The Bronx Museum of the Arts; Socrates Sculpture Park; Kunsthalle Tbilisi; the National Museum of China; Elizabeth Foundation for Arts; BRIC Biennial; the Tartu Art Museum, and more. 

Levani is a recipient of residencies, awards, and grants that include: the LES Studio Program at Artists Alliance Inc.; the Annual Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park; the Peter S Reed Foundation Grant; the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program; the Creative Time X Summit Grant; the AIM Fellowship at the Bronx Museum of the Arts; the NARS Foundation Studio Residency; and an award from the National Endowments for the Arts. Levani’s work has been featured in Frieze, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB, ArtAsia Pacific, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, and more

About the Exhibition
To learn more about the 2025 exhibition, The Bride Has Gone to Pick Flowers, curated by Lila Nazemian, mentored by Martha Joseph, see here. 

For more contact about the work, read Tsovinar Kuiumchian’s long-form essay about the exhibition, “Rewriting the Vow: Queer Visions of Marriage Rituals from the Caucasus,” mentored by Kim Córdova.

Fair Information + Tickets

NADA New York 2025
Wednesday, May 7 – Sunday, May 11
Starrett-Lehigh Building
601 West 26th St, NYC

Fair Hours:
Wednesday, May 7th, 10 am–4 pm (VIP Hours)
Wednesday, May 7th, 4–7pm
Thursday, May 8th, 11am–7pm
Friday, May 9th, 11am–7pm
Saturday, May 10th, 11am–7pm
Sunday, May 11th, 11am–5pm

View ticket information here.

Inquiries
To inquire about works and commissions by Levon Kafafian, Fatemeh Kazemi, or Levani, please contact info@cueartfoundation.org.

Artwork Preview Photos

About CUE Art
CUE Art is a nonprofit organization that works with and for emerging and underrecognized artists and art workers to create new opportunities and present varied perspectives in the arts. Through our gallery space and public programs, we foster the development of thought-provoking exhibitions and events, create avenues for mentorship, cultivate relationships amongst peers and the public, and facilitate the exchange of ideas.