"For those who experience the momentum of revolution, time passes differently: the future becomes a promise that waits somewhere in the past, always anticipating return. The archive itself becomes a tool for perceiving time, offering the possibility to return and remember" ~ ~ ~ ~ As part of the International Institute for Social History, IISG’s 90th-anniversary year, artist and DAI's Palestine Teach Out#11 guest, Golrokh Nafisi together with researcher Ahmadali Kadivar will inhabit the institute in a performative sit-in during the first week of December. On 9 December 2025 the exhibition After Storms: A Meeting in the Archive will open to the public. Both posters and newly created work will be on display while Ahmadali and Golrokh will talk about their work.
Golrokh and Ahmadali will create a new work of art that emerges from their encounters with the collections of the institute and the conversations with its workers and visitors. Their work traces questions, reflections, and gestures drawn from collective memory, turning the archive into an active participant.
While working, Golrokh Nafisi’s posters - spanning the last sixteen years of making illustrations of protests and movements - hover as witnesses and echoes of collective struggle. They show moments from Tehran to Beirut, Cairo to Baghdad, and student encampments for Palestine around the world.
The IISG was founded at a time when fascism was on the rise and the archives of social movements needed to be preserved. The preservation and accessibility of the archives of movements who fight oppression, injustice, and inequality such as activists against discrimination, colonisation and racism, women's and LGBTQIA+rights advocates and environmental activists, is as important now as it was back then. Displaying Golrokh’s art - created during revolutionary moments, shared for public use, and taken into the streets by activists - underscores this continued relevance.
On 9 December 2025 the exhibition After Storms: A Meeting in the Archive opens at the IISG. Both the posters and the newly created work will be on display, and Ahmadali Kadivar and Golrokh Nafisi will talk about their work.
After Storms is co-commissioned by Framer Framed, IISG's partner institution in this exhibition.
Practical
Date 9 December 2025
Time 16:00
Place IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance Free admission, but because of the organisation, please send an email to event@iisg.nl if you want to join.
Read more:
About Golrokh Nafisi
https://iisg.amsterdam/en/events/opening-exhibition-after-storms-meeting-archive