bahareh hejrankeshrad - Video, Animation & Installation

LI Empire des lumieres, Single-channel video, silent, 8 min 34 sec, 2026. Filmed with a digital camera, digitally edited.

L'Empire des lumieres continues my earlier video work while remaining closely connected to the series of drawings developed in parallel. The video extends the same visual language into a time-based medium, where the image itself becomes more prominent and can be read as a cinematic self-portrait.

The dialogues and text fragments that appear between the individual sequences do not

function as narrative commentary. Instead, they follow the movement of thoughts, emotions, and inner dialogues, creating an additional layer of meaning that makes internal processes visible without defining them explicitly.

The title of the video is borrowed from Rene Magritte's painting series L'Empire des lumieres. The opening and closing dialogues also refer to this body of work, providing the conceptual framework for the piece.

Video installation with sound, 715 x 196 cm, 6 min. 37 sec., 2024-2025.
Acrylic and soft pastel on paper, two-channel audio and single-channel video

This installation unfolds in the space between drawing and moving image. A long surface of paper, worked with acrylic and soft pastel, evokes fabric or skin. At first it appears almost white, but under the projected light it shifts into subtle shades of grey, where folds and forms remain unstable, recalling both bodily fragments and abstract landscapes.

The video projection activates the drawing in time: shadows of bodies emerge, disappear, and merge with the surface. The soundtrack consists of isolated Persian words and expressions-limping, killed, adorned, full of anger, the world, pale, pointless, astonished, apathetic, and fatigue. While each carries an emotional charge, together they do not form a coherent narrative; instead, they function as a rhythmic sonic structure.

The fragility of pastel-which must be reworked each time the installation is presented-is integral to the work, pointing to the instability of identity. Through its spatial arrangement, viewers become part of the installation, as their shadows immediately alter the projected image.

Ohne Titel, 2D-Animation, 00:03:42, 2023, In der ZERO Foundation Sammlung

Knoten, Single-channel video, silent, 7 min 34 sec, 2023. Filmed with a digital camera, digitally edited.

The human mind is shaped by countless entanglements and an elusive complexity that becomes even more intense through encounters with others. This video attempts to make these inner tensions visible through the human body. Filmed primarily in black and white, it draws inspiration from Surrealist cinema of the 1920s, placing emphasis on form rather than narrative.

The work metaphorically visualizes psychological tensions through complex bodily configurations. As viewers move through the space, they become part of the work: their shadows temporarily alter the image, transforming the installation into an open encounter between drawing and moving image, body and surface, light and absence.