Mahyad Tousi

Welcome Mahyad Tousi to the Museum of Arts and Design’s Stage!

Mahyad Tousi is a Brooklyn-based artist, filmmaker, and founder of the arts nonprofit Starfish. Working across Hollywood and the art world, his projects span network TV to major museum installations—including REMOTE (with Mika Rottenberg), which premiered at NYFF and Tate Modern. He is currently in production on two new works: a follow-up to REMOTE, and CURA—a sensory work of “ritual cinema” co-created with Indigenous tribes of the Amazon. His first Kickstarter launched in July 2025. Read more about CURA over on Kickstarter!

🎵 Performance by Carla Kihlstedt

Carla Kihlstedt is a vocalist/violinist/violist, writer/lyricist, composer/improviser, and educator. Her music is nourished by friendships, books, curiosity and is influenced by many musical languages and traditions. Like many modern humans, she has omnivorous musical tendencies. An award-winning violinist and graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and a long-time instigator of composer’s collectives and bands of all sorts, Kihlstedt fuses her classical technique and ear for nuance with her DIY maker-space ethos.

Carla is on the faculty of the Contemporary Musical Arts Department of the New England Conservatory and of the MFA in Music Composition program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts at CalArts. She has co-facilitated the Creative Gesture Lab for composers and choreographers at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and is a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. She is currently incubating an ongoing educational, environmentally-motivated youth chorus project called Long for This World. You can explore more at carlakihlstedt.com.