In his 2011 lecture “The Challenges of Immigration: A Radical Solution,” Gary Becker, 1992 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, proposes that US immigrants pay an entrance fee of around $50,000. Becker argues this would be a win-win situation. My brother, Ramyar and I have been seeking an O-1 (artist) visa to stay and work in United States and we both used to live in the basement of Gary Becker’s house in Hyde Park, Chicago.
In direct response to Gary Becker’s lecture, this piece is titled The Challenges of Imagination. Through various stories and documents, the work will cast a sharp, though always playful, satiric eye on the world and its assumptions and institutions.
Challenges of Imagination is a collaborative project with Ramyar Vala. The work exists both as a lecture-performance and a video-installation. Challenges of Imagination has been performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Northwestern University in Evanston and it has been displayed as a video-installation at the HydePark Art Center in Chicago.![]()
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In direct response to Gary Becker’s lecture, this piece is titled The Challenges of Imagination. Through various stories and documents, the work will cast a sharp, though always playful, satiric eye on the world and its assumptions and institutions.
Challenges of Imagination is a collaborative project with Ramyar Vala. The work exists both as a lecture-performance and a video-installation. Challenges of Imagination has been performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Northwestern University in Evanston and it has been displayed as a video-installation at the HydePark Art Center in Chicago.






