Visual artist Chupan Atashi was born in Tehran. Their work unfolds between the time of the self and the time of the world through an excavation of memories, archiving, and documentation of the self. Their past seems to deform due to the lack and omission of cumulative documents. How much is their memory dependent on these documents, and how do these memories form the future? The future is a subjective idea that affirms, deconstructs, and changes the present conditions. The self is their primary material, the different origin stories, and the product of an interpretation. Their work resonates with the history of violence and the ability to stand in the spaces between realities without losing sight of fact itself. Atashi holds a B.F.A. in photography from Tehran University of Art, and they completed a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Recent exhibitions include “Simurgh” at Galerie Crone during Berlin Gallery Weekend (2023); “Die Aussenseiterband” at GALERIE DER KÜNSTLER*INNE in Munich (2023); “Stories of Belonging” at DeAppel in Amsterdam (2022); “Is It Possible to Be a Revolutionary and Like Flowers?” at Nest in The Hague (2021); “Who Wants to Live in a World Without Magic?” at Tent in Rotterdam (2021); “See You There: Making History at The Corner,” inspired by The Whitman-Walker HIV Oral History, at The Corner in Washington, D.C. (2020); “Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, and Derelict” at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2019); “Brace for Impact, Node#1” at DeAppel in Amsterdam (2018); “Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, and Derelict” at Grazer Kunstverein in Graz, Austria (2018); and “Only the Morning Bird Treasures the Flower Garden” at Red Cat Gallery in Los Angeles (2018).
At MacDowell, they worked on materials for a multimedia exhibition at the Tallinn (Estonia) Contemporary Museum later in 2023. In 2024, Atashi will have a solo show in Amsterdam, which includes animation, installation, photography, and a performance piece. Atashi created sketches for the video animation and developed the text and the score for the performance.
