Overview
Ziya started as an art studio in 2011 in Berkeley to provide people of the Bay Area with an original understanding of the traditional arts of various cultures. The co-founders of the studio, Arash Shirinbab, Fateme Montazeri, and Zoha Mahzoon are themselves artists and calligraphers, learned their skills first hand in traditional societies.
Attending several exhibition in 2010, they found out that most of the time people would approach the traditional arts from SAMENA (South Asia, Middle East, North Africa) through the orientalist lens without accessing the first hand resources. So they intended to provide space to create authentic artworks, hold different workshops, and showcase the artworks through different venues.
In this regard, they participated over ten art exhibition and presentations in the Bay Area including “Bridging the Gap” exhibition at the California College of the Arts, “Invoking Peace” exhibition at Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College, and “Muslim Eyes” exhibition at Marin Community Foundation.
During this period, Arash noticed a thirst for traditional and contemporary art from SAMENA (South Asia, Middle East, North Africa) region and a great need for an organization to address this demand. After graduating from MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts, Arash carried his experience in calligraphy and design, and also his educational background in business administration into Ziya and planned to make it a multicultural art center.
Ziya is registered on November 2012 and started its new life as a multicultural art center by building partnership with local cultural community centers and performing several art and culture programs including workshops, book reading, film screening, traditional performance, and art exhibitions.
Ziya is expanding its partnership with more local cultural community centers, art organizations, public libraries, and colleges. Ziya is also building long term relationship with artists from SAMENA region to support and showcase their artworks through online galleries and actual exhibitions in United States.
