“I am enough and whole as I am”:

Bea Dero casts hybridity onto the streets of London

Bound by Two Homes blends Iranian cultural iconography with quintessentially British spaces to dissect identity

© Bea Dero. Courtesy 1854 | British Journal of Photography.

by Dalia Al-Dujaili, 1854 | British Journal of Photography

For Bea Dero, a British-born Iranian artist – as for most diaspora – hybridity presents itself as a method by which one practices their identity as they go. The artist’s debut solo show Bound by Two Homes materialised through a deeply personal journey of self-acceptance, an effort to reconcile two halves of an identity that the world so often forced apart. “When I’m in Iran they call me English and when I’m in England, they ask me where I’m from. I needed to find a way to create a representation that would help me see myself as whole as opposed to in-between things or never enough as either or,” Dero says. “I am enough and whole as I am, I just exist as something new.”

The tension of duality, the inescapable contrasts and parallels of heritage, is not unique but Dero’s response offers a particularly distinctive visual declaration of belonging, an assertion that identity does not have to be fragmented but can instead be layered, complex, and proudly held in its entirety. 

The body of work – co-curated with Green Tble – brings together a portrait series and a reworking of family photo-album images, forming Archive Trellis, an installation that underscores the role of memory and nostalgia in shaping identity. “Through this piece, I’m reinforcing how memory and nostalgia inform my sense of self and in-turn, my practice. It further contextualises the project as my recent explorations have also rooted in my yearning to return to my motherland, which I can no longer do due to political safeguarding reasons,” she explains.

“Song of the North”

Bringing a Persian Epic to the World, With Help From 483 Puppets

Hamid Rahmanian has made it his life’s work to share the richness of Iranian culture. “Song of the North,” at the New Victory Theater, is just the latest installment.

The show, at the New Victory Theater in Manhattan, is aimed at audiences 8 and older. It’s the latest of Hamid Rahmanian’s projects drawing on the “Shahnameh.” Photo by Gavin Doran. Courtesy New York Times. 

by Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times

On a recent afternoon on 42nd Street in Manhattan, a mythological bird was preparing to take flight.

Backstage at the New Victory Theater, a black-clad puppeteer put on an elaborately stylized mask and stepped into a beam of light, throwing the shadow of fluttering hands onto a large scrim.

Nearby, two other performers were gearing up to practice a sword fight. Then the music started, and a crew of nine began a full run-through of “Song of the North,” an elaborate shadow puppet staging of stories from the 10th-century Persian epic the “Shahnameh.”

From the audience, the show unfolded like a seamless animation. But backstage, the next 80 minutes were half ballet, half mad scramble, as the performers grabbed hundreds of different puppets, props and masks stacked on tables and, with split-second timing, jumped in and out of the light beams streaming from two projectors.

Leaning against a backstage wall was the show’s creator, Hamid Rahmanian. His role? “Stressing out,” he said.

A Review on "The Persians" – women on the edge

5 Iranian Women are at the Centre of New Fiction Release, The Persians

This multigenerational saga of an Iranian family fleeing to the US during the 1979 revolution is both funny and poignant

by Joanna Cannon, The Guardian

Courtesy 4th Estate.

“She’d grown pale, her eyes frozen, like she’d seen her own ghost. But aren’t we all exactly that? Each the ghost of an unchosen path,” writes Sanam Mahloudji in her debut, a multigenerational story of five Iranian women from the prestigious Valiat family, separated by personal and political revolutions, and each struggling to accept the path not taken.

The narrative is shared between the five voices, as it shifts back and forth across 80 years. There is Elizabeth, the matriarch, who – not blessed with the perfect features of her sisters – becomes fixated on her looks (“this is the story of a nose”, she tells us). Eventually she falls in love with a boy who loves her back; unfortunately, that boy is the son of her family’s chauffeur: not an ideal situation in 1940s Tehran. Bowing to pressure from her father, Elizabeth eventually marries someone of her own class; frail and elderly by the time the 1979 revolution begins, she decides to remain with her husband in Iran. However, because the family is rich and high profile, and descendants of Babak Ali Khan Valiat, the heroic “Great Warrior”, as the revolution takes hold she insists that her two daughters flee the country for their own safety. Like many thousands of Iranians at the time, they choose to travel to the United States, the land of opportunity.

Seema, who struggles with being both an idealist and a housewife, tries to adapt to 1980s Los Angeles – or “Tehrangeles”, as it’s known, due to the high Persian population (the climate and mountains are reminders of home). Meanwhile Shirin, an outspoken events planner whose outlandish behaviour opens the novel with a bang when she is falsely arrested for prostitution, settles in Houston with designer labels and a mediocre husband.

The Artistic Journey of an Iranian Designer

 A New Book Shares the Artistic Odyssey of Iranian Designer Farshid Mesghali

Man & Lion (sculpture), 2006. © Farshid Mesghali; Courtesy PRINT Magazine. 

by Majid Abbasi, PRINT Magazine

In the 1960s and 1970s in Iran, with economic development and government support, as well as the expansion of activities and the establishment of various institutes and cultural centers, art and graphic design flourished. During these years, Iranian graphic design drew from the country’s rich visual heritage, eschewing the Swiss International Style, and found influences in Polish graphic design styles and the historical reinterpretations of Push Pin Studios. Farshid Mesghali is one of the most influential and prominent representatives of graphic art and illustration of this period. With a deep understanding of both Iranian and international visual languages, Mesghali creates works that, while poetic and simple, invite entirely personal and free interpretations. He often reimagines these diverse sources into innovative forms, embodying a generation that laid the foundations of the golden age of graphic design in Iran.

A comprehensive book, Selected Works of Farshid Mesghali, was recently published in Tehran by Nazar Art Publishing. This book, unparalleled in its kind, offers a relatively complete collection of Mesghali’s works in graphic design, illustration, painting, sculpture, and photography. It also includes essays exploring various aspects of his life and work by Mahmoudreza Bahmanpour (publisher and curator of Islamic Art at LACMA), Ali Bakhtiari (curator and writer), Behzad Hatam (graphic designer), and Amir Nasri.

Filmed underground and in secret:

The story behind this 'banned' Oscar-nominated film

Acclaimed director Mohammad Rasoulof filmed The Seed of The Sacred Fig in defiance of Iran’s strict filmmaking laws. It’s earned him an Oscar nomination — and a prison sentence.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is set against the backdrop of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement, during which mass protests erupted in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. Photograph courtesy of Neon.

by Alexandra Koster, SBS News

Four weeks into shooting his latest film, Mohammad Rasoulof was sentenced to eight years in prison and lashings in Iran.

It isn't the first time the award-winning Iranian director has been punished for his work.

In 2010, he was sentenced to six years in prison by the Iranian regime for his film The White Meadows. In 2017 he was banned from leaving the country and later convicted by the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Iran for “collusion against national security" over his film A Man of Integrity.

In 2020, Rasoulof was again sentenced to a year in prison for three films authorities deemed "propaganda against the system".

But this time, he had to think about his future.

‘Embracing imperfection is key to artistic evolution’:

An interview with Iranian artist Sadegh Adham

‘These works invite humanity on an aesthetic journey, free from political and social biases’

Sadegh Adham, in his studio in Tehran, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist and Global Voices.

by Omid Memarian, Global Voices

Sadegh Adham’s artistic journey began in the most unexpected of circumstances. The sounds of war marked his early years as he grew up during the Iran-Iraq war. Born in 1978 in Masjed Soleyman, a city in southern Iran in Khuzestan province, Adham’s childhood was shaped by the intensity of conflict and its lasting impact. He recalls how, at the age of five, a missile destroyed their home, and his family was forced to seek refuge in his maternal grandmother's house in Shushtar. Yet even amidst the chaos of war, Adham’s innate creativity began to take root.

Adham recalls the first sparks of his artistic journey — his father working with melted lead and his mother’s drawing book, where he first copied a mermaid. These early experiences laid the foundation for his passion for art.

Sadegh Adham, ‘Soldier Helmet,’ ‘War’ Series 2013. Image courtesy of the artist and Global Voices.

Growing up in a region with limited access to art education, Adham’s determination to create was unwavering. He fondly remembers gazing at a box of 96 colored pencils in a bookstore window, longing to own them. Eventually, after a year and a half of saving, he bought the set, fueling his artistic drive.

The Barbican as muse:

Composer Shiva Feshareki on bringing the brutalist icon to life through music

For the last two years, British-Iranian experimental composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki has been drawing on the Barbican’s hidden history as a gateway for her new piece. She talks to Wallpaper about her Brutalist muse

Image credit: Dion Barrett. Courtesy Wallpaper.

by El Hunt, Wallpaper

Whether you love or loathe the concrete geometry of the iconic Barbican estate, it tends to inspire strong feelings: for every Londoner charmed by its sharp Brutalist architecture, you’ll find another person just as eager to brand it an eyesore.

First constructed in post World War II London by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the sprawling complex aimed to revive an area of the capital that had been devastated by bombing, but was originally the site of a Roman fortress, marking the gateway passage through London’s walls, and into the ancient city. Created with a Utopian vision in mind, and inspired by the fortress that used to stand here – both in name and its construction – this city within a city now contains a huge performing arts centre, a tranquil, one-hectare lake, and a hidden conservatory packed with tropical plants.

And for the last two years, British-Iranian experimental composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki has been drawing on the Barbican’s hidden history as a gateway for her new piece, 'Bab-Khaneh: Gatehouse of Memory'. The work’s title refers to the ancient Persian word ‘Bab-Khaneh’ – thought to be a possible origin of the word Barbican – and Feshareki has imagined the project as a sonic survey of the Barbican Hall’s acoustics and design.

If you’re not already familiar with Shiva Feshareki, her work is part of a rich lineage of experimental composition, drawing on everything from musique concrète pioneer Daphne Oram to warped, acid-flecked dub. In essence, the Ivor Novello-winning artist offers up a fascinating exploration of how sound moves through space, incorporating turntables, orchestras, cutting-edge ambisonic technology, choirs, and bespoke art installations to bend, morph, and reshape sound as we know it.

Filmmaking as Rebellion:

 An Interview with Nahid Hassanzadeh

Another Time (2016), Directed by Nahid Hassanzadeh. Image courtesy of Visions of Iran: Iranian Film Festival in Cologne.

by Abhimanyu Bandyopadhyay, Zamaneh Media

In the Islamic Republic of Iran where the state has waged a relentless war on women for decades, artists like Nahid Hassanzadeh becomes an act of defiance. A midwife-turned-filmmaker, she is part of a growing wave of Iranian artists using cinema as resistance—unflinching, poetic, and dangerous. From Tehran’s hospitals to international film festivals, Hassanzadeh’s journey is a testament to the unwavering spirit of Iranian women in their fight against the Islamic Republic’s iron grip.

Between 2001 and 2012, Hassanzadeh made five documentaries and short films while working as a midwife in Tehran. Her debut feature film, Another Time (2016), won the Best Film Award at the 22nd Kolkata International Film Festival and has been screened at several international events, including the São Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil, the Raindance Film Festival in the United Kingdom, the Exground Film Festival in Germany, the Seoul International Agape Film Festival in South Korea, and Ohio’s Athens International Film and Video Festival (AIFVF) in the United States. Nahid was recently invited to serve as a jury member at the 30th Kolkata International Film Festival, where she discussed her own journey, the significant challenges faced by women filmmakers in Iran, the prevalence of male dominance in the Iranian film industry, and the unstoppable “Women, Life, Freedom” movement.

“I am an Actress, Where is my Country?”

A Seattle actor explores what it means to be an artist in exile

Julia Rahmanzaei’s student project at the University of Washington, called “No Way to Go, No Way to Stay,” formed the basis of her upcoming solo show “I am an Artist, Where is my Country?” (Christie Zhao). Courtesy The Seattle Times.

By Gemma Wilson, The Seattle Times

Of all the scenes in Julia Rahmanzaei’s upcoming solo show — scenes with titles like “how to change my blood,” and “Iranian art department” — the one she’s most nervous to perform in public is called “asylum or artist visa.” 

The show, “I am an Actress, Where is my Country?” which runs Feb. 27-March 1 at Theatre Off Jackson, tells the story of Rahmanzaei’s life and, she said, of so many silenced Iranian artists. “Asylum or artist visa” — seeking asylum protection or an artist visa — are two options ahead for the actor, who left her home country due to government censorship of her art. Neither one is certain. Her immediate future may be unknown but Rahmanzaei knows art will be a part of it, no matter how difficult — this is what it means, for her, to be an artist in exile.

“I’ve fought for art, for being an artist, since I was 15 years old,” said Rahmanzaei, now 33, who arrived in Seattle around four years ago to attend the University of Washington School of Drama’s professional actor training program, from which she graduated in 2024. 

Rahmanzaei hasn’t been back to Iran since relocating; she’s here on a still-valid student visa and isn’t sure what would happen to her, or her passport, should she return home. She’s performing without a hijab, she’s telling her story of Iranian censorship — she just doesn’t know.

A Review on "Maximal Miniatures: Contemporary Art from Iran"

The artists twisting Persian masterpieces with stunning color

With dreamlike imagery and bold patterns, contemporary Iranian artists have reinterpreted the Persian miniature tradition.

Farah Ossouli. David and I (2), 2014. Gouache on cardboard. 75 x 110 cm. Courtesy Middle East Institute.

by Vanessa H. Larson, The Washington Post

Two contrasting works boldly set the stage for the Middle East Institute Art Gallery’s “Maximal Miniatures,” a showcase of contemporary Iranian artists inspired by Persian miniature painting.

Elham Pourkhani’s “Zahhak’s Castle Is Calm” exemplifies many characteristics of the centuries-old artistic tradition. At just about 23 by 27 inches, the intimate piece is striking in its brilliant colors and rich ornamental detail. Its subject is Zahhak, a mythical ruler in the Persian national epic — the Shahnameh, or “Book of Kings” — whose evil, bloodthirsty reign lasted 1,000 years.

Why Reading Lolita in Tehran Holds Up

 A new film vindicates Azar Nafisi’s humane literary ethos.

© Photographer: Sasan/AFP/Getty Images. Via MSN

by Arash Azizi, The Atlantic

The past few years may well be remembered as the nadir of Iranian-Israeli relations, and the first occasion when the two countries attacked each other directly. But they were also a golden period for Iranian-Israeli collaboration in cinema. In 2023, Tatami was the first-ever film to be co-directed by an Israeli (Guy Nattiv) and an Iranian (Zar Amir). And in 2024 came Reading Lolita in Tehran, directed by Eran Riklis, who is Israeli, and adapted from a book by an Iranian author, with an almost entirely Iranian cast. The film premiered at the Rome Film Fest last year and is now starting to tour the United States.

Anyone old enough to remember cultural life at the beginning of this century will know the book. Azar Nafisi’s memoir came out in 2003, spent 36 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and quickly developed a cult following. A reviewer for The Nation confessed to missing a dental appointment, a business lunch, and a deadline just because she couldn’t put the book aside.