Fatimah Hossaini is an Afghan-Tehran born artist, award-winning photographer, curator, TEDx speaker, and founder of the Mastooraat Organization, whose work bridges art, identity, memory, and advocacy. She is globally recognized as one of the youngest recipients of the Hypatia International Award and was honored as a rising talent and youth ambassador by the Women’s Forum in France in 2022.
Her artistic journey began with a Bachelor of Arts in Photography from the University of Tehran, alongside an earlier degree in Industrial Engineering. She later served as a lecturer at the Faculty of Art and Photography at Kabul University. Fatimah is currently a Faculty Research Scholar at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York and has previously completed residencies at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in NYC and the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.
An advocate for women’s and refugee rights, Fatimah has collaborated with international organizations including the United Nations and UNESCO’s Silk Roads Programme. Her artistic practice explores themes of gender, migration, exile, cultural memory, and belonging, with women at the center of her visual storytelling. Through staged and documentary photography, her vibrant compositions illuminate the resilience, beauty, and complexity of Afghan and diasporic experiences.Alongside her ongoing artistic practice, Fatimah is currently developing a long term research-based visual project focused on women across the Silk Road and the MENA region. Combining photography, archives, storytelling, and cultural research, the project explores shared histories, visibility, displacement, and the ways women preserve cultural identity across generations and borders.
Her work has been exhibited internationally across Europe, Asia, and the United States, and featured in publications including TIME, The Guardian, Vogue France, and Arte. Her acclaimed photobook Beauty Amid War, a powerful portrait series tracing Afghan women from homeland to exile was published in France in 2022 by Collection des Photographes Editions and later in Italy in 2023 by Allemandi Editions.
After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Fatimah was forced into exile in France. Since then, her work has continued to advocate for artistic freedom, women’s visibility, and the transformative power of visual storytelling as a form of resistance, healing, and connection.
In partnership with AFI’s residency program and the Afghan Artist Protection Program (AAPP), Fatimah joined Parsons School of Design at The New School through the New University in Exile Consortium.
