Melika Panbehchi
2025 HEAR US Awardee
ITP Class of 2025
melika panbehchi is a multimedia artist, facilitator, (im)migrant rights organizer, storyteller and creative technologist from tehran, iran, who resides in the "in between" of many places, identities, and desires. after spending half of her life in san francisco bay area and half in tehran, she currently lives in bed-stuy, brooklyn. her work is both tangible and immersive, making use of performance, soft materials, electronics, computational poetry and collective storytelling. with each piece, she seeks to emulate assertiveness in liminality and longs to speak of be-longing in the endless blackhole of nostalgia.
Project
"the in-between" is an interactive storytelling project that navigates the delicate, often contradictory spaces that exist between cultures, between geographies, and between identities. It is an exploration of the way culturally dualistic places—like Neukölln in Berlin, where Western notions of freedom intersect with deeply rooted Middle Eastern traditions—shape the self-expression of Middle Eastern queer and trans individuals.
It is about the never-ending search for home—both in the world and within one's own skin.
In the spring of 2019, I arrived in Berlin expecting a quintessential European experience, only to find myself in a neighborhood that felt closer to my childhood home of Tehran than anywhere else I had experienced in the West. Neukölln, a historically Turkish neighborhood brimming with elements resembling my own home, became my sanctuary for four months. It was the first place where my many selves could coexist at once. My queerness, my Iranianness, and the American ideals of self-expression I had internalized were not just tolerated; they thrived together. It was the freest I had ever felt.
Years later, with an academic background in sociology, journalism and interactive arts, as well as a deep commitment to amplifying marginalized voices through focusing on immigrant and refugee rights in my professional career, I returned to Berlin to begin ethnographic research. This research has become the foundation of "the in-between." What emerged was a tactile sound installation, taking the shape of an iconic Turkish tea cup—فنجان کمر باریک—an object as deeply embedded across Middle Eastern cultures as it is in Neukölln’s streets. This object, so often held between two fingers, became the perfect vessel for stories of those who, like me, exist between worlds.
The piece is an archive of voices, of stories that are often hidden or silenced. As visitors touch the vulva inside the teacup, these intimate stories are unlocked, revealing layered narratives of resilience, longing, and self-discovery. These voices map the hidden intersections of queerness, gender and diaspora, reflecting the complex ways in which identity is performed and negotiated in cities like Berlin and beyond.
This project is a love letter to those who navigate these liminal spaces, to those who carve out homes where none were made for them. It is a testament to the ways in which our herstories, our cultures, and our desires can coexist—despite the never ending push and pull of opposition and harmony.
With plans to expand the scope of the project beyond Berlin, I aim to gather more stories, build a modular and portable installation that can travel around the world just as these stories need to and do, and develop an online platform where these narratives can continue to grow. This is more than an art piece; it is a living archive, a dynamic space of collective memory and resistance, and an invitation to those who, like me, are searching for home in the spaces between.
