EYES, COME BACK  

We cordially invite you to EYES, COME BACK – a staged exhibition by Setareh Shahbazi with Reihaneh Mehrad, Haytham El-Wardany,  Nancy Naser Al Deen, Sama Ahmadi, Ann-Kristin Hamm, Sedami Gracia Elvis Theodor Ophelia Azilinon, Malonda, and more.

Setareh Shahbazi is the 2024/2025 recipient of Wi Di Mimba Wi – a commission prize by AKB-Stiftung & SAVVY Contemporary for artists of colour in Germany. EYES, COME BACK is a solo show that pushes against the contained vision of an artist as a singular body or as a singular creator. Instead, the exhibition unfolds as an evolving collaborative inquiry into memory and its ruptures, forging a collective gaze through which to look upon the world and ourselves. In doing so, EYES, COME BACK becomes both a meditation on remembrance and a refusal to forget.

In a historical moment when the facades of democracy crumble across the West, Shahbazi’s work holds a critical urgency, channeling the disruptive spirit of the trickster and the power of an interconnected gaze. Shahbazi’s practice invites us to squint and stare into the murky depths that connect the struggles of Tehran to Beirut, Beirut to Berlin, and far beyond.

SETAREH SHAHBAZI  was born in Tehran in 1978. She studied Scenography and Media Arts at the State Academy for Art and Design in Karlsruhe and spent the following ten years living and working between Beirut, Tehran and Berlin, where she has been based since 2013. Her work draws inspiration from visual notes that surround her, from old family photographs to newspaper clippings, feeding into her conceptual installations, multi-coloured prints, and digitally manipulated photomontages. Through her artistic practice, Shahbazi offers reconstructed narratives, simultaneously provided by her personal and collected stories. Her works have been displayed in exhibitions in Iran, Lebanon, Germany, Italy, and France, among others.