AFI and VU are pleased to feature the works of Iranian visual artist Nazanin Noroozi throughout I Create; I Resist. Noroozi utilizes moving images, printmaking, and alternative photography processes to touch on themes of collective loss, displacement, and the relationship between society and history. She uses imperfect images – including pixelated, obscured, low-quality, overexposed, shaky, and amateur photographs and recordings – as a reference to the literal movement of time and the elusiveness of memory.

After the outbreak of the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement in September 2022 Noroozi collected and categorized thousands of traumatic yet powerful images and videos captured by anonymous Iranians involved in the protests. Her multi-media collage pieces seek to amplify the lived experiences of the protestors by incorporating the images they captured on the ground. Noroozi created the series on a base sheet of used, handmade paper and print works, layering them with cut-out photographs and still images from the protests in Iran. The pieces feature pixelated elements which Noororzi achieved by toner-transferring the collaged images with acetone and solvents, which she then painted, scratched, tore, and drew over multiple times in an effort to elicit the same illegibility of the original footage taken by the anonymous protesters, who shakily photographed their surroundings while running from the police and armed militias. Noroozi’s works viscerally communicate the chaos, fear, and anger felt throughout the initial protests as well as the resilience and daring of the protestors who dutifully captured their surroundings during Woman, Life, Freedom. 

Noroozi’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at SPACES, Cleveland, OH; Athopos, Athens, Greece; Golestani Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany; Immigrant Artist Biennial, NARS, Brooklyn; Noyes Museum of Art, New Jersey; as well as NY Live Arts, School of Visual Arts, and Postcrypt Art Gallery at Columbia University. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Marabeth Cohen-Tyler Print/Paper Fellowship at Dieu Donne, Artistic Freedom Initiative, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, and Mass MoCA residency. She is an editor at-large at “Kaarnamaa,” a journal of art history and criticism. Noroozi holds a master’s degree in Art History from the Tehran University of Art and an MFA in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute. Her works have been featured in BBC New Persian, Elephant Magazine, Financial Times, and Brooklyn Rail.

To learn more about Nazanin Noroozi’s work, please see her website at: https://www.nazaninnoroozi.net/