Who is Shirin Abedinirad?
Shirin Abedinirad was born in 1986, in Tabriz, Iran. She began to explore her artistic skills with painting in 2002. Shirin first completed her academic studies in Graphic Design and later, Fashion Design, at Shariaty Technical College in Tehran, in which her research focused on conceptual art and the ways in which it overlaps with fashion design.
During this time, she started engaging in performance art pieces around Iran, confronting issues of gender, sexuality, and human compassion. She has also staged many public shows.
Since 2012, Shirin has been making video art, exploring the notion of self and identity with moving images. In both her performance art projects and videos, she was the performer as well as the designer of her own costumes, props, and sets.
What Does She Create?
Mirrors, nature, and the sky are her main inspirations and medium to create her installations through which she expresses her thoughts and creativity. For each of the installations, she has a strong message to tell or something to enlighten our paths in an artistic way.
“We are going to the sky, who wants to come with us? We have gone to heaven, we have been the friends of the angels, and now we will go back there, for there is our country.” Rumi.
“By putting our head down, did we forget about looking up and looking at the sky? In the Girls Monastery, I want to draw people’s attention to the sky, with mirrors placed on the ground, I want them to look up even when their head is down. I want to bring sky under their feet so they can have sky and look beyond their limits.” she captions her Heaven on Earth #2 installation in her solo collection “Collective reflection” which is a staircase out of mirrors installed on a historic place in Trabzon, Turkey.
”If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.” she captions her “The secrets of secrets” installation with a quote from Rumi, the Persian poet, who highly influences her during her creative processes.
She has become more captivated by nature as a central theme. In 2013, she thus began creating land art, installation projects, and public art by employing images of nature.
You can sometimes see her as the conceptual artist or the performer of her own art, just sitting on the street with a suitcase full of sand, or modeling with her latest art piece installed in an open place.
Why Does She Create?
She mostly creates as she has something to express her views on gender, sexuality, and human compassion through her unique art pieces, and sometimes with performance.
Shirin has exhibited her artworks in numerous international festivals, biennials, and exhibitions throughout the globe. Currently based in the United States, Shirin has continued focusing on her performance, installation, and video art projects.
Gallery
You can see some of her impressive installations in our gallery below, and visit her Instagram and website for further info.