Artist News: Kavi Gupta is pleased to share that Sara Rahanjam is participating in an artist residency at Hugenottenhaus in Kassel, Germany, organized by Moving School.
During the residency, Rahanjam is developing Bodies, a collaborative project with Saba Soleymani that explores the body as a site of memory, resistance, and transformation. Rooted in the artists' lived experiences of displacement, political repression, migration, and war, the project examines how personal and collective histories become inscribed onto the body through acts of endurance, vulnerability, and care.
The residency takes place in Kassel, a city internationally recognized as a major center for contemporary art and the home of documenta, one of the world's most influential exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Since its founding in 1955, documenta has transformed Kassel into a global meeting point for artists, curators, and audiences engaged in critical conversations around art, society, politics, and cultural exchange. This significant artistic context provides a meaningful backdrop for Rahanjam's ongoing exploration of identity, displacement, and collective memory.
Sara Rahanjam is an artist working primarily in sculpture, performance, photography and video. Rahanjam constructs figurative objects that encode social experience directly into physical form. While her practice is grounded in the lived realities of women in Iran, her works resist illustration in favor of conceptual lines of questioning. Through her sculptures, performances, and writings, Rahanjam reflects the tension between endurance and rebellion, she channels these experiences into a broader dialogue about the collective longing for transformation that defies contemporary Iranian society. Rahanjam’s work bears witness to limitations imposed upon women while revealing the strength, beauty, and intellect that persist in defiance of those constraints. Through this interplay of personal narrative and collective consciousness, she transforms private struggle into public discourse. Rahanjam’s work balances the refinement of aesthetic inquiry with the force of advocacy. She aspires to inspire contemplation, evoke empathy, and catalyze change transforming art into a vehicle for awakening. Through her practice, Rahanjam continues to advance a vision of cultural and social evolution rooted in the unwavering pursuit of equality.
Rahanjam has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Iran and internationally, with presentations at GRK Gallery in Paris; CAMA Gallery, Sales Gallery, Iranshahr Gallery, Negar Gallery, and Baroug Gallery in Tehran; and exhibitions in China addressing contemporary Iranian art. Her work has been included in major international biennials, including the 5th Beijing Biennial (China, 2012), the 2nd International Mediterranean Biennial (Split, Croatia, 2010), and multiple editions of the Sculpture Biennial for Urban Space in Tehran (2008, 2018).
She has received several awards recognizing her contributions to visual art, including first prize at the National Festival of Urban Space in Mashhad (2010), first prize at the 6th Visual Arts Festival in Shiraz, second prize at the 5th Visual Arts Festival in Shiraz, and third prize at the National Fine Arts Company Festival Imam Reza in Shiraz (2008). Rahanjam has also participated in international symposia, including the 4th Sand Sculpture Symposium in Tehran (2012) and the 2nd Sand Sculpture Symposium in Babolsar (2006).
