Email: b.ahmadifard@gmail.com
Writings in Persian: http://baharahmadifard.blogsky.com/
Education:
Master of Arts in Photography (Tehran University of Art) – 2019
M.A. thesis title: Analyzing the recurring themes in critical texts about contemporary photography in Iran.
Summary: This thesis analyzes one hundred texts related to photography discourse in Iran, focusing on seven standard terms. Previous attempts at a comprehensive survey of critical articles on photography in Iran have been arbitrary. Many texts required editing to make them coherent, understandable, and logical. The study aims to clarify fundamental terms used in the texts to find inter-textual relations. The most frequently used concepts/terms are historiography, authorship, art movements, fragmentation, self-portraiture, lived relation/experience, and contemporary/contemporaneity of art.
Bachelor of Arts in Photography (Tehran University of Art) – 2016
Exhibitions/ Projects/Publications:
– Kariz: Dark, Wet, and Moving | The Festival 2023 – Instants Vidéo numériques et poétiques | co-curator and video artist | October 2023
– Immediate and Remote: HerMaP Art Projects in Tehran Exhibition | Former Rayy Cement Plant (1295-1985) Timeline | Wall Installation | Aaran Projects | December 2021
– Movement & Disruption | Solo presentation | Wall installation | New Media Projects | 2021
– Movement & Disruption | Within the Finitude exhibition | Kandovan building | Pejman Foundation | Nov- Dec 2020
– Future as the Point of Departure | Online – Speaker/Panelist | Dust to Come/Future threads | Mosaic Rooms | London | Aug 2020
– Radio Dust | Rhodiola | Alserkal Avenue | Dubai | Spring 2019
– Recurring Concepts in Contemporary Critical Discourse on Iranian Photography | Photography MA Thesis Presentation | Tehran University of Art | 2019
– Student Photography Festival award | Tehran University of Art | 2012
Work experience:
– A curatorial residency with Les Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques in Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille., France. Marseille, France, from October 11-25, 2023.
– Room for Doubt – Founding Member and Interpreter
– Collaborator/ Coordinator/Translator in HerMap Art projects’ Online Residency Aug – Dec 2020.
– Limited access 8 Festival for moving images, sound & performance – project coordinator and content supervisor | August 2019
– Curator Assistant in Reset Modernity! Tehran Perspective Workshop, April 2019.
– Research Assistant: photographic cultural exchange workshop | Two Cities, Tehran-Dortmund; https://two-cities.de | 2019
– Writer and Columnist in Art and Culture magazines Engar, Exir, Tajrobeh, and CinemaVaAdabiat, among others, since 2016
– Board member and regular contributor to Poetica Project | collective and online publication since 2015
– Editorial team of Sarkhoshi Magazine | Online publication on Media, Art, and Performance in Public Space since 2020
– Project Coordinator: New Media Projects since the Fall of 2018
– Project Collaborator: Animation; experiment collective 2018-2020
– Curatorial Associate: New Media Projects since the Fall of 2018
– Guest Editor/Contributor: Calotype Quarterly, Tehran University of Art
– Editor in Chief: IS magazine, Student Review leaflet at the Tehran University of Art
Curatorial / Educational Projects:
– Selected to present my curation of video artworks during the 36th Festival Les Instants Vidéo at La Friche in October 2023 for a 45-minute Carte Blanche.
– Researcher/Collaborator in Curated Programs of Parking Video Library | 2018-present
– Workshop Instructor | Future: as a Point of Departure, the Literary Self-portrait as an Alternative Novelistic Approach | Collective Research-based Project | Dec 2019
– Curator | Learning photography at Tehran University of Art; A simulator | collective project | New Media Society | 2019 – ongoing
– Lecturer Assistant | The language experience: Defensive preparations | New Media Projects | 2018
Writings:
– The Fall and Rise of the Former Rayy Cement Plant(1295-1985) | published on the website and printed publication of HerMaP art Projects in Tehran | 2020
– Impossible Tehran, a review on Mehran Mohajer’s Photobook “Undated/Displaced Tehran” | published in Sarkhoshi online magazine
– Inanimate objects, an analysis of Peyman Hooshmandzadeh’s photobook” (A People of Horse)” | published in Tajrobe Magazine Monthly literary and art periodical | March 2017
– Staged Photography in Iran, Three Case Studies: Azadeh Akhlaghi, Gohar Dashti, and Newsha Tavakolian | Published in Engar, an online literary and art magazine
List of books that have been officially published:
– Antoin Sevruguin: The Illustrator of the Five Eras; Reflections on the Life, Time, and Photos of Antoin Sevruguin | Pargar Publication | 2022
– Harold Bloom’s Critical Essays on Modern Literature | Harold Bloom | Tamaas Publication | 2021
– How Fiction Works | James Wood | Mania Honar Publication | 2019
– Loitering with Intent | Muriel Spark | Parseh Publishing House | 2017
Theatre and Performance Texts:
– Transient Works: Tehran-based collaborative performative laboratory, January 2022
– Azade Shahmiri’s performance manuscript, “Temporeality”; Flinn Works produced in co-production with Sophiensaele.
– Sina Seifee – Goda Palekaite’s performance manuscript titled Project Odyssey as a part of HerMap Art Projects exhibition, Aaran Gallery, Tehran.
Essays (Selected):
– Amirali Ghasemi, “Video as an Artistic Medium in Iran from the 1990s to the Mid-2000s: As Seen through the Lens of Upheaval and New Technologies,” in Honar-e Jadid: A New Art in Iran, edited by Hannah Jacobi (Berlin: mohit. art, 2022); published on www.mohit.art on February 25, 2022.
– Staci G. Scheiwiller, “Relocating Sevruguin: Contextualizing the Political Climate of the Iranian Photographer Antoin Sevruguin (c. 1851–1933).”
– Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “The Legs of the Countess.” October 39 (1986).
– Julian Barnes, “Writer’s Writer and Writer’s Writer’s Writer: ‘Madame Bovary.'” London Review of Books, November 18, 2010.
– Todd Kontje, “Motivating Silence: The Recreation of the ‘Eternal Feminine’ in Robert Musil’s ‘Tonka.'” (1987).
– Maud Ellmann, “The Modernist Rat in the Nets of Modernism: Henry James, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Sigmund Freud.” (2010).
Membership:
Room for Doubt since 2021
New Media Society since 2018
Poetica Project since 2015
Languages:
Persian – Native
English – Proficient
French – Intermediate