Opening-Day Talk: Abbas Akhavan

Abbas Akhavan will be at the Walker Art Center on Thursday, November 12, for a talk that opens Variations on a Garden, his first major US museum survey. He'll be in conversation with curator Pavel Pyś, talking through the work and the exhibition that runs from that day through April 18, 2027.

Akhavan was born in Iran in 1977 and now lives and works in Canada. His practice centers on quiet encounters with the passage of time, and he goes about it by manipulating organic and inorganic matter to raise questions about ecological change, cultural preservation, and the line between public and private space. Variations on a Garden takes the garden as its starting point, treating it as a negotiation between wild and domesticated life.

The talk is part of the Walker's Talks and Lectures series, so it's a chance to hear the artist speak about the work in person rather than just reading the wall text. If you can't make the opening, the exhibition stays up for months, running from November 12, 2026, to April 18, 2027, and was curated by Pavel Pyś with Brandon Eng. The talk itself happens on Thursday, November 12, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.