A solo exhibition of conceptual photography by Los Angeles-based Natasha Rudenko. During the opening reception, an excerpt from the Women / Immigration / Fight or Flight opera will be performed by quantum soprano composer Shooka Afshar. Be/longing Longing to belong or to simply be present, seen. What is longing? Defined as a “yearning desire” it leaves out both a nature of the object of that desire and the reasons behind it. The object of longing seems irrelevant and the yearning - directionless. We say: longing for home, for love, for acceptance, for recognition, for friendship. The concepts that through their platitude deceive you into familiarity but that in fact persist in their ambiguity. Susan Stewart in her book On Longing quotes the 1748’s Anson's Voyage Around the World: “Our native country, for which many of us by this time has begun to have great longings” and thus places the narrative of the “yearning desire” into the narrative of homesickness; and socially and colloquially the two experiences are still connected. For an immigrant, and I, myself, am one, defining home becomes a task of a lifetime. But for me, the longing for home started long before I left what now official documents call a “country of origin”. My being originated there, but what does it really mean? What non-severable ties did that event create in the process? Has it so happened that I am destined to long for home or rather for that sense of belonging with the unquenchable thirst of a traveler stranded on a raft in the middle of the shoreless ocean? How the relationship with a place is created to form a bond that would make one say “I belong here”? In this project, I am not so much as looking for answers to these questions but rather reflecting on them and the experiences that posed them. The angst of presence, of “being seen” is resolved through creating photographic self-portraits, that loop the “looking” and the “being looked at” in a perpetual echo while the act of photographing turns them into the evidence of presence. - Natasha Rudenko Natasha Rudenko was born in Moscow and received honors in Photography from the British Higher School of Art and Design, She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from State University – Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography at New York Film Academy, Los Angeles. Since 2013, Rudenko has been exhibiting her work in various group shows in New York, Los Angeles, Athens, Tempe, Moscow, and Budapest. Her work has been found in a number of annual publications of feminist and queer art, including Issues II and Femme Fatale Volume III Analog and Femme Fatale Volume IV Leafless. Rudenko is also an educator of Fine Art Photography at the New York Film Academy, Los Angeles, and UCLA Extension. She currently makes Los Angeles her home. Women / Immigration / Fight or Flight is a mixed media opera based on Shooka Afshar’s true-life story, composed by Shooka Afshar. This opera depicts the challenges of women who had to immigrate to another country to follow their dreams, to be able to have a normal life, and to fight for their basic rights. This is opera tells the story of Shooka Afshar's life who changed her circumstances from being ridiculed of wanting to be a singer, to women who is now praised for her art and knowledge in the US. This opera has a universal message to all the women of the world who have been working hard to improve their lives and reach their dreams, in the midst of the most suppressed societies and lack of resources. Shooka Afshar’s first bachelor’s degree was in Physics, due to not being able to study arts and music academically. Moreover, to this day, women are not allowed to sing in public in front of men in Iran. In this mixed media opera, Shooka is sharing the strength of a woman who’s been receiving the message of “women shouldn’t be loud and laugh loud”, “women are not allowed to sing” and “womanhood is a shame”, and yet she decided not be a victim of her circumstances. “I hope this opera inspires all the women who self-doubt and second guess themselves, and remind them the power of choice”, Shooka Afshar. Shooka Afshar, Soprano, City of Boston Certified Artist, is a classical/opera singer from Iran, composer, flutist, pianist, and music entrepreneur. She finished her undergraduate and received her Master’s degree in Classical Vocal Performance at Longy School of Music in Boston in 2014. Shooka is an advocate for women’s rights, and her recent mixed media project is an opera based on her life story, portraying women who overcome extreme challenges to find out who they truly are and break free of society’s chains. She premiered her opera Women / Immigration / Fight or Flight at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston online in March 2021. She is currently planning to tour her opera nationally and also internationally, including a performance at Casa Regis, Italy in the summer of 2022. Shooka’s life story documentary will be released soon, created by Asma Khoshmher for the documentary department at Emerson College, Boston.