Shirana Shahbazi (*1974) has adopted a differentiated view of our society and its challenges. Her highly aesthetic work establishes the fragment and layering as a strategy for doing justice to a complex present. Based on her experience of multiple affiliation, she examines the construction of reality. How can the experience of the simultaneity of different realities be depicted in images? How can spatial and emotional distances be grasped? Always starting with photography, but including the most diverse of techniques and materials, Shahbazi’s work eschews any obvious categorisation; it remains multi-layered and conveys polyphony as a political stance.

Shahbazi experiments with surfaces, formats, colours, space and light, and so far has not shown many of her works. In dialogue with Li Tavor (*1983), and complemented by works from others, the artist creates expansive installations.

In 2019 Shahbazi was awarded the Prix Meret Oppenheim, the most important art prize in Switzerland presented by the Bundesamt für Kultur.