Azadeh Emadi WPP2016

Azadeh’s  research interest and work has revolved around the issues of transnational, intercultural cinema, media and performance arts.

Initiated by personal experiences of misrepresentation and stereotyping in relation to Iran, its people and culture, and underpinned by a cultural position aiming to counteract their isolation and disconnection from the rest of the world, her research questions the surface of digital images to stimulate different ways of seeing and knowing. The research considers creative approaches engaging moving image in relation to the world outside of the frame, in tandem with philosophical enquiries. Theoretically and practically, it is inspired by the movement between figurative/representative and non-figurative/non-representative elements in traditional Persian-Islamic arts and schools of thought. The research is positioned amongst recent research on intercultural video, materiality of digital media, connections between Islamic and new media art, and new interest in Islamic and Iranian philosophy. Classical Persian-Islamic philosopher, Mulla Sadrā Shirazi (I571-1641), in particular, provided a platform for investigating digital video and moving image art.

The quest of her works are to question and better understand the effects of a widening gap between Middle East and West on Middle Easterners’ experiences in exile, by exploring the body and its relation to space. For These explorations,the performative and cinematic installation as well as  poetic documentary, has been used as a main site of publication to engage body of spectators with aspects of moving image and spatiality. She primarily employs film, video projection, light and sound constructions.