Tehran-based video artist Niyaz Azadikhah’s animated works sketch graceful, wry digital observations and commentaries on life in modern-day Iran.
Read MoreIn ‘Kaktus’, she uses doll-like figures of chador-clad women, who slowly morph and mutate, drifting gently into the form of a cactus plant, their rosary beads emerging into blooming flowers. In the tightly-controlled, unfurling of the image, Azadikhah represents closed systems of ideology and futile behavioral patterns in society. This is something also apparent in ‘Line 1’, which takes us inside the women’s carriage of the Tehran metro. In blocky, cut-out style animation, the scene is centred on an itinerant underwear seller, touting her wares to the carriage of women who respond with varying degrees of interest. The variety of subtle reactions are Azadikhah’s observations on society and human nature, and human endeavour.
