Meulensteen

Born in Iran and currently a resident of New York, Vaziri draws on a wide range of cultural references, from Persian miniature and ethnographic videography to Modernist painting and Rauschenbergian collage. This formal diversity allows her to highlight the non-linear connections between the stories she represents, and to draw attention to visual and linguistic similarities between otherwise divergent narratives, which include stories told firsthand by Palestinians in a Lebanese refugee camp; a video 'encounter' between Vaziri and an Israeli artist, conducted in their native languages and mediated only by camera and English subtitles; and Vaziri's own experiences of immigration, cultural alienation, and assimilation. Vaziri received an MFA from Yale University in 2009 and a BFA from Tehran University in 2005. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in San Francisco, London, and Dubai. She has held residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine in 2010 and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, New York in 2011. She has co-curated a number of exhibitions and screenings, including “Handheld History” at the Queens Museum of Art in 2010. In addition to her artistic practice, Vaziri reports on the arts in New York for BBC Farsi.

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