At Boulder’s Dairy Arts Center, ‘We are from Iran’ exhibit weaves Persian calligraphy into visual poetry

In the United States, cursive is dying a slow, loopy death. Roughly only half of the states require kids to learn it, leaving a generation of children to try and decipher grandma’s birthday cards like they’re written in ancient runes.

Entering the exhibit “We Are From Iran”, a display of Persian poster art at the Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, feels a bit like being reintroduced to what letters are capable of. In Farsi, words curve right to left, looping around the gallery walls like poetry going for a meandering jaunt.

Curated by Parisa Tashakori, the exhibit showcases the work of 18 Iranian graphic designers who use typography not just to decorate a piece of paper, but to speak — loudly.

Tashakori, a designer, artist and professor at the University of Colorado, was conta