Gohar Dashti received her M.A. in photography from the Fine Art University of Tehran in 2005. After studying photography in Iran, she has spent the last 12 years making work concerning social issues with particular references to history and culture through a convergence of interest in anthropology and sociology. She tries to express the world around her. Her starting point is always her surroundings and her memory, but with her very personal perception of things. She tries to trace her relationship to society and the world in its most sensitive way. Her practice continuously develops from life events and connection between the personal and the universal, the political and the fantasized.
She has participated in several art residencies and fellowships such as DAAD award, UdK Berlin, (2009-2011); Visiting Arts (1Mile2 Project), Bradford/London, UK (2009), and International Arts & Artists (Art Bridge) in Washington DC (2008). She has held various exhibitions around the world, being shown in many museums, festivals, and biennales. Her works are in many collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago; and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris. At MacDowell, she completed two parts of one project, making photograms and polaroids for a body of work centered around the connection and disconnection between nature, humans, and the city. This project was first presented in Boston at the Robert Klein Gallery at the Ars Libri in 2017, and then shown in Tehran at the Mohsen Gallery. Dashti was awarded the Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen prize in 2017.
