Shirana Shahbazi and Thi My Lien Nguyen

Photo: Anne Morgenstern

Shirana Shahbazi (b. 1974 in Tehran; lives and works in Zurich) is an internationally renowned artist. Her works are represented in public collections worldwide, including the Aargauer Kunsthaus; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Kunstmuseum Zürich; MoMA, New York; Tate Modern, London. Her work has been exhibited in international institutions such as MoMA (New York), Hammer Museum (LA), Barbican Art Gallery (London) and the Venice Biennale. She has published various artist books and monographs with Manuel Krebs. In 2019, she was awarded the Prix Meret Oppenheim. Shirana Shahbazi composes complex pictorial spaces using photographic means and various forms of layering. Her work makes it clear that perception is an elaborate construction process that never reflects reality, but stages it. The view of life, nature and space is reflected in her works as an experience that is already culturally and socially predetermined.

Photo: Joël Hunn

Thi My Lien Nguyen is a Swiss-Vietnamese photographer and artist who explores the sense of belonging and the understanding of participation and home, with a particular interest in diasporic and post-migrant realities. Through participatory and inclusive methods, as well as performative and culinary actions, she seeks to create more inclusive spaces to achieve greater understanding and representation between communities. She works with traditions, rituals, folklore, photography and food. Her work has been exhibited at the 22nd Sesc Videobrasil Biennial in São Paulo (2023), at Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich (2023), as part of the Plat(t)form – Fotomuseum Winterthur (2022) and Photo Hanoi – VCCA (2021). She is part of the curatorial team of Les Complices*, a community-based off-space in Zurich that supports the ideas and work of queer, trans, inter, non-binary, female* and BIPoC artists.