In partnership with LIVE Biennale, Unheld II brings together Iranian artists Saghi Ehteshamzadeh and Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi in an experimental audio-visual performance exploring dissociation, dislocation, and the quiet liberations that emerge at a distance from home. This event also features Saghi’s installation Holding On, a meditation on memory and depression built from incomplete scans of a single moment, and Pillow Talk by Fashion x Electronics (FXE), with seven haptic garment-based sound sculptures that turn fashion into interactive instruments. This programme moves between installation, performance, and wearable technology to ask how bodies, memories, and materials hold and transform experience.

Doors open + installations at 6:30pm
Performance at 7:30pm

Admission is by a suggested donation of $10-$20, courtesy of BMO Financial Group

RSVPs are helpful

Lineup

Unheld II
Performance by Saghi Ehteshamzadeh and Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi
Unheld II is an experimental audio-visual piece that explores tender moments of disassociation and dislocation in female bodies—gestures of release that signal a quiet liberation from systems of oppression. It serves as a requiem for displacement, holding on to fragments of home while embracing an identity that can only begin to emerge at a distance from the homeland.

Unheld II is rooted in the shared emotional landscape of Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi and Saghi Ehteshamzadeh, and the deep sense of mutuality and connection they bring to performing together.

Holding On
Installation by Saghi Ehteshamzadeh
Holding On is an installation that reflects on dissociation and memory. The piece explores how memories become fragmented when a brain, fighting depression, dissociates within a moment in time. In return, when the veil of dissociation lifts, the mind reaches back, holding fragments of euphoria and leaving the scraps of loss and pain unremembered.

The result is a shattered moment stretched into eternity, an attempt to preserve what remains of happiness. Made from incomplete real-life scans of a single moment, Holding On is the artist’s attempt to make this fractured memoir eternal.

Pillow Talk
Interactive garment-based sound sculptures by Fashion x Electronics (FXE)
Seven haptic, garment-based sound sculptures, each with its own sound world, visuals, and mode of interaction. Fashion becomes functional art, a wearable instrument, and a different form of sonic and visual expression rooted in human touch. Bridging the art of fashion with electroacoustic music production technique and physical interaction, each of these sculptures are focused on the integration of specific sensors, used to trigger different sounds and audio processing. The garments/sculptures use conductive materials, such as conductive fibre to fully integrate the human touch. All sounds are created through an embedded system, using specific microcontrollers for each sculpture.

Pillow Talk Team
Kayla Yazdi - Co-Founder of FXE & Fashion designer
Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi - Co-Founder of FXE, composer, & technologist
Mike Mulshine - Technology specialist

About the Artists

Fashion x Electronics (FXE)
We are sisters, Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi, a composer/performer, and Kayla Yazdi, a fashion and textile designer. FXE is a non-profit interdisciplinary collective and our mission is to merge our two worlds together by taking risks and experimenting. Simply put, we wanted to see what happens when music and fashion design converge. For each event we collaborate with a different team of creators to make it happen. Our goal is to build multi-sensory experiences for our community, and to bridge together a diverse range of disciplines.

Saghi Ehteshamzadeh (b. 1995, Tehran) is a queer interdisciplinary Vancouver-based artist/curator whose practice encompasses video art, live visual performances, new media, and art installations.

Holding a Bachelor of Cinema Studies from the Art University of Tehran and graduating from Capilano University's Arts and Entertainment Management Program in North Vancouver, Saghi's diverse artistic background informs their creative endeavours.

Saghi's art practice draws inspiration from their personal experiences navigating disabilities and advocating for social justice, particularly within Iran and the ongoing struggle for wxmen's equality. Their video practice is characterized by a unique blend of compressed, low-resolution imagery and pixel manipulation, and their live visuals feature a fusion of exotic retro videos alongside digital scans of nature and urban environments.

Beyond their artistic pursuits, Saghi has held positions such as the Exhibitions Manager at North Van Arts and Associate Curator at the Centre of International Contemporary Art (CICA) in Vancouver and currently serves as the Co-chair at VIVO Media Arts Centre's board of directors.

Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi is an Iranian composer and performer. She writes for hybrid instrumental/electronic ensembles, creates electroacoustic and audiovisual works, builds instruments, and performs electronic music. She explores the unfamiliar familiar while being motivated by how melodies unfold through time; finding ways to play with various musical thresholds and exploring musical extremes is something that she is currently attracted to. Her work experiments with merging Iranian music with the more contemporary classical music aesthetics.

Being a cross-disciplinary artist, she has actively collaborated on projects evolving around dance, film, and theater. She is the co-founder and producer of Fashion x Electronics, a collective focused on creating interdisciplinary works based on fashion and electronic music.

Kimia’s work has been showcased by organizations across the globe and her work has been performed internationally at festivals including Ars Electronica, Festival Ecos Urbanos, Tehran Contemporary Sounds, Sonic Matter Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Sound and Music Conference, and Modulus Festival, among others.

She holds a BFA in Music Composition from Simon Fraser University’s Interdisciplinary School for the Contemporary Arts. Kimia is currently based in San Francisco and is a doctorate candidate in Music Composition at Stanford University.

Kayla Yazdi is an Iranian-Canadian wearable art designer. After moving from Iran to Canada, she expanded her artistic practice by earning a Bachelor of Design in Fashion Design & Technology and gained valuable experience working with apparel companies such as Gentle Fawn and Lace Embrace, where she served as a technical developer. She has also been an artist in residence at Cortex Frontal in Portugal, Château Orquevaux in France, and Domaine de Boisbuchet in France.

Kayla is the co-producer and creative director of Fashion X Electronics, a multidisciplinary collective that merges fashion, music, technology, and other artistic disciplines. Her work is driven by a passion for experimentation and a deep desire to express individuality through fashion as abstract but functional art. She is motivated by the challenge of pushing boundaries within the fashion industry, often blurring the line between production and visual art by transforming garments into installations and wearable art.

Kayla is also deeply committed to collaboration, believing it fosters creative discovery and innovation. Working with others allows her to think on a larger scale while cultivating a community that thrives on the exchange of knowledge and skills.

Mike Mulshine is a composer-songwriter-performer and music technologist whose work centrally explores how humans relate to each other via modern digital technology. He produces interactive audiovisual works that aim to expose accessible, engaging, and empowering new modes of experiencing or (co-) creating media. These range from web-based interactive albums to physical sound installations and experimental compositions that blend vernacular and formal elements. He completed his PhD in Computer-Based Music Theory and Acoustics and a Diploma in Music Composition at Stanford University in 2025.

Banner Image: Saghi Ehteshamzadeh