With exile in mind, soft everyday gestures and the warmth of domestic spaces gather an unexpected, poignant weight. The place of the retreat itself recalls the radical legacies of psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles alongside the political and clinical valences of asylums, while channelling a surreal tone through quotes from Adolfo Bioy Casares’ novel The Invention of Morel. Casares’ fictional island evokes the space between the real and the imaginary, the spectres of surveillance and return, and a paradox of exile – that of being constantly watched yet invisible. No individual portraits emerge, rather, glimpses and partial conversations coalesce with each voice amplifying both collectivity and nuance. The Retreat proposes a powerful way of alchemising shared vulnerability and strength into a moving, restorative gesture of solidarity. (Ilinca Vânău)

Gelare Khoshgozaran is an undisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose work engages with the legacies of imperial violence manifested in war, militarization and borders. They use film and video to construct peripheral narratives that seek to redefine existing constructions of ‘home’ as a means of approaching new conceptualisations of belonging. Khoshgozaran has presented their work internationally, with recent and upcoming exhibitions at Delfina Foundation, Images Festival, EMPAC, MASS MoCA and the Hammer Museum. With a BFA in Photography from University of Arts in Tehran (2009), and an MFA from University of Southern California (2011), they are assistant professor of New Genres at the UCLA Department of Art.

The Retreat (2023), To Be the Author of One’s Own Travels (2023), To Keep the Mountain at Bay (2023), Royal Debris (2022), Memories of Loitering (2021), MEN OF MY DREAMS (2021), Medina Wasl: Connecting Town (2018), rial & tERROR (2011)