Through simple mobile technology Pittsburgh citizen Elise Walton will be a human avatar for Sohrab Kashani, a 24-year-old man who is currently living in Iran. You can have lunch and speak to Sohrab through the body of Elise at the Conflict Kitchen every Wednesday from noon to 2pm. In this way citizens of Pittsburgh will be introduced to someone who is currently living in an entirely different cultural circumstance through the body of a local citizen right in front of them.

“The Foreigner” presents an uncanny circumstance where the separation between self and other, local and foreign, is collapsed and confused, and the geopolitical distance the United States and Iran is made personal and local.

Produced by Felipe Castleblanco and Jon Rubin