HODA AFSHAR

Early years and background

Afshar grew up in Tehran in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution and during the Iran–Iraq War, experiences that later shaped her sensitivity to state power, visibility and marginality. She studied photography at Azad University of Art and Architecture in Tehran, beginning her career as a documentary photographer in 2005 before migrating to Australia in 2007, where she later completed a PhD in Creative Arts at Curtin University and is now based in Melbourne, lecturing in photography and fine art.

Hoda Afshar artworks

Hoda Afshar’s artworks use staged documentary, portraiture and moving image to explore how images construct public narratives around subjects such as refugees, protest movements, colonial histories and spiritual beliefs, often emphasising the gap between what is seen and what is suppressed. Working across photography, video, sound and installation, Afshar experiments with form—from black-and-white portrait series to mirrored surfaces and multi-channel projections—to question who controls images, and how they shape collective memory and political imagination.

Early documentary and Scene

Afshar’s early project Scene (2005) consists of black-and-white photographs of underground parties in Tehran, reflecting her interest in performance and the theatricality of photography, though the series could not be publicly shown in Iran due to censorship.overland+1​During this period she also worked as a photojournalist, developing an approach that would later evolve into a critically self-aware form of documentary that acknowledges the image-maker’s role in constructing reality.

Remain and Manus Island

Afshar’s breakout body of work, Remain (2018–2019), combines a video installation with black-and-white portraits of refugees detained by Australia on Manus Island, including the Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Produced collaboratively with the men depicted, the project re-stages scenes and gestures on the island to refuse conventional victim imagery, earning Afshar the Bowness Photography Prize and leading to major exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and University of Queensland Art Museum.

Speak the Wind

In the series Speak the Wind (2015–ongoing), Afshar photographs communities on islands in the Strait of Hormuz, where local beliefs link illness and misfortune to spirit winds, using long exposures and atmospheric compositions to suggest unseen forces moving through bodies and landscapes. The project, which has been exhibited internationally and in book form, extends her interest in how metaphysical, historical and political currents intersect, particularly in a region shaped by trade routes, resource extraction and contested borders.

Agonistes, A Curve is a Broken Line and The Fold

The installation Agonistes (2020–2021) portrays Australian whistleblowers, combining large-scale photographic portraits with sculptural presentation to consider the costs of truth-telling and the visual construction of heroism and dissent. Later works such as A Curve is a Broken Line and The Fold bring together photographs, mirrors, archival material and animation to examine how bodies, especially women’s bodies, have been framed historically, including through colonial ethnographic images that Afshar re-appropriates and reconfigures. ​

Select awards and accolades

• Winner, National Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery of Australia, for Portrait of Ali (2015)
• Winner, Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, for Portrait of Behrouz Boochani, Manus Island (2018)
• People’s Choice, Ramsay Art Prize, Art Gallery of South Australia, for Agonistes (2021)
• Early-career recognition including World Press Photo educational award and Kaveh Golestan Documentary Photography Award, Tehran (2006)

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Hoda Afshar exhibitions

Hoda Afshar has been the subject of solo exhibitions and major projects at museums and galleries in Australia and internationally, while also participating in biennials and survey shows that foreground contemporary photography and moving image.

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Select solo exhibitions

• Hoda Afshar: Performing the Invisible, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris (2025–2026)
• A Curve is a Broken Line, University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2024)
• A Curve is a Broken Line, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2023)
• Undone, Milani Gallery, Brisbane (2023)
• Aura, Milani Gallery, Brisbane (2023)
• Agonistes, St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne (2021)
• Remain, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2018–2019)
• Behold, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2017)

Select group exhibitions

• Hoda Afshar: Performing the Invisible (installation within broader programme), Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris (2025–2026)
• NGV Triennial, including The Fold, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2023–2025)
• A Curve is a Broken Line (works included in collection and touring contexts), major Australian institutions (from 2023)
• Between the Sun and the Moon, Lahore Biennale 02, Lahore (2020)
• Civilization: The Way We Live Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2019)

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Website and Instagram

Hoda Afshar’s website can be found here, and Hoda Afshar’s Instagram can be found here.

More reading

Hoda Afshar’s practice has been discussed in interviews, catalogues and critical essays from institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Portrait Gallery of Australia and international museums.

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Hoda Afshar FAQs

Ocula | 2026