1844 Persian siyah mashq calligraphy exercise by Muhammad Shah Qajar

Ink in Motion 2026: Free Online Persian Calligraphy Event

Persian calligraphy is often encountered as a finished page: balanced, polished, and still. On September 19, 2026, viewers can instead watch it unfold stroke by stroke. Farhang Foundation’s Ink in Motion is a free online presentation and live performance by Iranian American artist, calligrapher, and designer Arash Shirinbab.

The English-language program is open to every skill level, and Farhang specifically notes that no knowledge of Persian or its script is required. That makes it a useful entry point for Persian art lovers, diaspora families, designers, students, and anyone curious about how writing becomes visual art.

Ink in Motion 2026: quick event details

  • Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026
  • Time listed by the organizer: 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
  • Location: Online
  • Language: English
  • Cost: Free with registration
  • Experience required: None

Use the official Farhang Foundation event page for the latest details and the organizer’s Zoom registration page to reserve access. The public event listing does not label the time zone, so viewers outside California should confirm the converted local time shown by Zoom or in the registration email before the event.

What will happen during the program?

Farhang describes the hour in two parts. Shirinbab will first introduce the literary and visual traditions behind Persian calligraphic art, including relationships among sacred text, geometric structure, and poetic rhythm. He will then move from explanation to action with a live, large-scale canvas demonstration.

That second half is what makes the event especially valuable. A museum page shows the decisions that survived; a live performance reveals the decisions being made. Viewers can see how speed, pressure, spacing, repetition, and bodily movement affect the final composition. At a larger scale, calligraphy is not merely written with the fingers. The arm, shoulder, and distance from the surface can all become part of the mark.

Five things to watch during a live calligraphy performance

1. The relationship between line and movement

A Persian calligraphic stroke is not simply an outline of a letter. Its character comes from movement: where the tool accelerates, pauses, turns, or lifts. Watch how one gesture can shift from a dense, dark passage to a thin extension. Even if you cannot read the words, the change in energy remains visible.

2. Proportion inside the letters

Classical calligraphers did not treat letter size as guesswork. Proportional systems helped regulate height, width, curves, and spacing. In a contemporary performance, those inherited structures may be followed, stretched, layered, or deliberately disrupted. The interesting question is not only “Is this traditional?” but “How is the artist using tradition?”

3. Rhythm across the whole surface

Persian calligraphy is read word by word, but it is also experienced as a complete visual field. Repeated curves can work like a refrain; diagonals can carry the eye upward; dark clusters can create weight against open paper or canvas. This is one reason nastaʿliq has long suited Persian poetry: its descending forms and suspended lines can make language appear to flow.

For a closer introduction to its major forms, see our guide to Persian calligraphy styles, including nastaʿliq and shekasteh.

4. Negative space

The blank area is active, not leftover. Notice whether letters crowd together, float separately, or create openings that give the composition room to breathe. At large scale, a single empty interval may be as important as a bold stroke.

5. The moment writing becomes image

Some works remain easily readable. Others repeat, overlap, rotate, or enlarge letters until semantic meaning becomes only one layer of the experience. Shirinbab’s practice includes calligraffiti, painting, ceramics, digital art, and installation, according to Farhang. His demonstration therefore offers a chance to see how historic letterforms can enter contemporary art without losing their cultural memory.

What is siyah mashq?

A helpful historical comparison is siyah mashq, literally “black practice.” Calligraphers repeated letters, words, or letter combinations to train the hand. Over time, these practice sheets became valued as compositions in their own right. Repetition produced dense patterns, and exercises once made for discipline could be mounted in albums and appreciated as art.

The featured image for this article is a striking example: an 1844 siyah mashq album page by Muhammad Shah Qajar, made in Iran. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that the page repeats letters and words using verses from the Shahnameh as a point of departure. The work shows why “practice” should not be confused with something visually unfinished. Its layered black forms, gold, borders, and controlled repetition create a deliberate field of movement.

That historical transformation—from exercise to art—also helps explain why contemporary calligraphy can move beyond a conventional manuscript page. Repetition, scale, gesture, and abstraction are not foreign additions; they have precedents inside the calligraphic tradition itself.

How nastaʿliq turns poetry into visual rhythm

Nastaʿliq is especially associated with Persian literary culture. A seventeenth-century folio by the Iranian master Mir ʿImad in The Met’s collection places poetic verses along diagonal lines. The museum describes the script’s refined, lyrical quality as particularly suited to love poetry and mystical imagery.

The connection is not accidental. Persian poems such as the ghazal rely on recurrence, balance, and variation. A skilled calligrapher can make those same qualities visible through the placement of words. Meter belongs to sound, while calligraphic spacing belongs to sight—but both organize movement through a work.

Who is Arash Shirinbab?

Farhang identifies Shirinbab as an Iranian American artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has appeared in more than 80 exhibitions, including over a dozen solo presentations, across the United States, Iran, Canada, Europe, and Asia. The organizer also notes works in collections including the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy in Moscow and the Abgineh Museum in Tehran.

That range matters for an event called Ink in Motion. Shirinbab is not presenting calligraphy only as a preserved historical technique. His multidisciplinary practice asks how lettering can remain recognizably rooted in Persian and Near Eastern visual traditions while operating on canvas, in public-facing contemporary styles, and through digital media.

How to prepare—even if you cannot read Persian

  1. Register in advance. Save the Zoom confirmation and check the local time it displays.
  2. Look at one historic page first. Spend a minute with the siyah mashq image above and notice density, repetition, borders, and empty space.
  3. Bring paper if you like. This is presented as a viewing program rather than a hands-on class, but sketching the direction of strokes can sharpen your attention.
  4. Listen for process words. Terms such as proportion, rhythm, geometry, pressure, composition, and repetition will help you follow the visual logic even without reading the text.
  5. Do not reduce the work to translation. Ask what the marks do before asking only what they say.

Keeping Persian script visible in everyday life

Online access makes this program particularly useful for diaspora viewers who may live far from a Persian art museum or calligraphy class. The same idea—keeping script present rather than confined to special occasions—can extend into ordinary objects. Tute’s Persian Calligraphy & Achaemenid Guard Canvas Tote Bag pairs a Persian verse with an ancient Iranian guard motif, while the Iran Dokht Persian Calligraphy Hat turns two words of identity into a wearable design.

Ink in Motion offers a deeper reason to look at such lettering carefully. Persian calligraphy is not decoration added after language. The shape, pace, balance, and placement of the writing are part of how meaning is made.

Image: Album Page with Calligraphy Exercise (siyah mashq), made in Iran and dated October 1844, by Muhammad Shah Qajar. Ink, gold, and opaque watercolor on paper. Public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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