Bahar Behbahani's research-based practice approaches landscape as a metaphor for politics and poetics. Behbahani looks into cultural landscapes both historically and in a contemporary context, posing urgent questions that consider the ways in which people negotiate space and place. Through a range of media—such as painting, video, installation and performative talks—she excavates historiography to shift the interactions between knowledge and power in historic and imperial contexts to a poetic body of work.
Behbahani is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award for an anticipated project Ispahan Flowers Only Once, a community garden inspired by Persian garden design, philosophy, plants and flora, which will bring people together to take part and re-activate the unseen histories by gathering and gardening.
Born in Tehran, Iran, into an artistic family of writers, painters, musicians and puppeteers, Behbahani relocated to the US and currently works in Brooklyn, NY.
Bahar Behbahani
Studios
Putnam
Bahar Behbahani worked in the Putnam studio.
The Graphics Studio (as it was originally named) was converted to its present use in 1972–1974 through a grant from the Putnam Foundation, and originally served the property as both a power house and pump house. Well water was pumped from a large cistern to Hillcrest, the Foreman’s Cottage, and the lower buildings closer to…