Born 1979, Tehran, Iran
Lives and works in Tehran

Nazgol Ansarinia’s artworks examine the often-overlooked moments of everyday life in Tehran and elegantly reveal how these small occurrences are symptoms of larger structural issues within Iranian society. Her recent projects have looked directly at architecture, ruminating on Tehran’s rapidly growing urban landscape.

Connected pools 2020 takes the city’s modernist backyard pools as a point of inspiration. In the 1960s and 70s, they became the site of cosmopolitan parties for the Tehrani middle class, but after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, they were seen as lavish displays of hedonism, so most of them were emptied, but have not been filled in. For Ansarinia, this expresses a silent aspiration for a future in which these spaces can be enjoyed once again. Although they occur on private properties, taken together across the city, these small voids become a vast space, which could be read as indirect metaphor for political comradery.