Azar Mahmoudian Esfahani

Curator, Iran. CPR participant: Who Is Being Heard?

Azar Mahmoudian (Iran) is an independent curator and educator, living and working in Tehran and partly Berlin.

Among her projects are multi-chapter program of moving image practices, Sensible Grounds, including Inhale (Fundación Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona), That’s How We Undo It (Lux, London), Tuning into the Rhythms of the Chronic (Nida Art Colony, Neringa/Lithuania); Communities of Oblivion (Bétonsalon, Paris); Tectonics of Camaraderie (Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm), the exhibition and conversation series When Legacies Become Debts (The Mosaic Rooms, London), program of seminars, residencies and production grants, Shifting Panoramas (TMOCA and various off-spaces in Tehran, KW, DAZ and feldfünf, Berlin).

She was part of the curatorial team of 11th Gwangju Biennial. She initiated and directed a shape-changing art school between Tehran, Armenian mountains, and other rural places in the region and co-organised kaf, a collective study space in Tehran. Both platforms refrain from having an online presence.


She has been a lecturer at art academies in Iran and internationally, and is currently PhD fellow at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.

CPR 2024: WIBH brings up to 8 international curators to Finland, Norway, and Sweden in September-October 2024 to research the regional art scene with the ambition to get a better understanding of the complex history and current political situation in the Nordics.

Portrait of a light skinned person with dark shoulder-long hair.

Azar Mahmoudian