Dr. Abbas Milani is currently a visiting professor of political science at Stanford University and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institute. He has served as Chairman of Department of History and Political Science of Notre Dame de Namur University since 1987. He has written and published extensively on Iran's encounter with modernity. His most recent collected essays, Lost Wisdom, Rethinking Modernity in Iran (Mage Publishers, 2004), trace the roots of Shiite Islamic fundamentalism and offers illuminating accounts of the work of Iranian intellectuals-both men and women- and their artistic movements as they struggle to find a new path towards genuine modernity in Iran that is congruent with Iran's rich cultural heritage.

Negar Azimi is a writer, curator as well as an editor of Bidoun a New York based publication on art and culture of the Middle East. Her writing has appeared in COLORS, Flash Art and Frieze among other publications. Negar is also a member of the Beirut-based Fondation Arabe pour l'Image, with whom she is working on photographic projects in Iran and the greater region.

Farhad Moshiri is an artist and curator working and residing in Tehran. Over the past two years Farhad has held solo exhibitions in New York, London, Rome, Geneva, Tehran and Dubai. His upcoming curatorial project Welcome opens on March 3, 2005 at the Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, 531-539 West 25th Street, New York.