Majlis al Jinn (Arabic: مجلس الجن) is the published product of five years of research and collection of books, manuscripts, and images as part of Morehshin Allahyari’s She Who Sees The Unknown series (2016–2021) – a multi-faceted art project in which the artist uses digital modeling, sculpture, installation, and moving image to create new stories about female and queer monstrous, specifically Jinn, figures of Islamicate origin. Morehshin uses the myths associated with them to explore the catastrophes of colonialism, patriarchism, and environmental degradation in relation to the SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) region.

Morehshin Allahyari (Persian: موره‌شین اللهیاری‎), is a Bay Area based Iranian-Kurdish artist and an assistant professor of Digital Media Art at Stanford University. She uses 3D simulation, video, code, sculpture, and digital fabrication as tools to re-figure myth and history. Through archival practices and storytelling, her work weaves together complex counternarratives in opposition to the lasting influence of Western technological colonialism in the context of MENA (Middle East and North Africa). 

Morehshin has been part of numerous exhibitions, festivals, and workshops around the world including Venice Biennale di Architettura, New Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Pompidou Center, MoMa, Victoria and Albert Museum, Queens Museum, and Museum of Modern Art, Taipei. She has been an artist in residence at Carnegie Mellon University’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Autodesk Pier9 Workshop in San Francisco, the Vilém Flusser Residency Program for Artistic Research in association with Transmediale, Berlin, Eyebeam’s one year Research Residency, Pioneer Works, and Harvest Works. She has been featured in Art21, The New York Times, BBC, Huffington Post, Wired, National Public Radio, Parkett Art Magazine, and Al Jazeera, among others. Morehshin’s work has been the subject of critical analysis across books, academic articles, and dissertation chapters of over 100 publications.

She is the recipient of the Gold Art Prize (2025), Creative Capital Award (2025), The University of California, Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (2024), The United States Artist Fellowship (2021), The Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant (2019), The Sundance Institute New Frontier International Fellowship (2019), and the Leading Global Thinkers of 2016 award by Foreign Policy magazine. 

morehshin.com
archive.shewhoseestheunknown.com

Designed by Melissa Aguilar Rojas

Printed and published by Irrelevant Press

1st edition of 100 copies
8×8’’, 74 pgs
Perfect-bound

Risograph printed in light grey on Eclipse Black Astrobrights text and coverstock
Screen-printed cover slip on mirrored silver cardstock