The photographs of
Shirana Shahbazi and the texts of the novelist Judith Kuckart are here combined to create a dialogue about wonder, displacement, and borders. It tells a story of boundaries allegorically - as the difference between not understanding and not-understanding-albeit-willing-to-understand - visually as the notation of transience - the constant displacement as a state-of-being - and as a book itself as the space in-between words and images.
Born in 1959 in Schwelm, Westphalia, novelist Judith Kuckart studied literature and drama in Cologne and Berlin. After her graduation she trained as a dancer and in 1986 founded the dance theatre Skoronel in Berlin. She now lives as theater director and author in Berlin and Zurich.
Born in Tehran in 1974, Shirana Shahbazi moved to Germany at the age of 11. She studied photography in Dortmund and Zurich, where she lives and works today. Her practice has been dedicated to generating a hybrid visual language that defies simple categorization and can be experienced on multiple levels. It challenges the translation and the transcultural construction of meaning. The physical presence of her work is just as important as its semantic underpinnings.
Shirana Shahbazi took part in the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and has had exhibitions in notable museums including Kunstmuseum, Lucerne (2026); Istituto Svizzero, Rome (2018); Museum Fotogalleriet, Oslo (2017), Camera Austria, Graz (2016), Kunsthalle Bern (2014); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012/2013). She received the 2019 Meret Oppenheim Prize for Visual Arts in Switzerland and the 2022 Mutina Art Prize in Modena, Italy.
She is a member of the artists collective
Shahrzad.
