about

I’m Behzad Khosravi Noori, an artist, history teller, writer and educator. My work begins in the places where memory resists erasure: where traces of colonial history, national myths, and personal migrations intersect. I approach these spaces not as fixed archives, but as living sites to be re-opened, re-narrated, and re-imagined. I believe that art can act both as a form of critical investigation and as a vehicle for social transformation. My practice moves across the intersections of artistic research, decolonial pedagogy, and political history, exploring how lived experiences, collective memory, and epistemic violence intertwine. For me, art is a bridge, connecting research, social engagement, and speculative critical imagination.

Through it, I aim to examine new forms of knowing and new methods of speaking about our collective memories and histories. My projects often evolve through long-term collaborations and transdisciplinary research, based on non-hierarchical methods. I ask questions: What happens when stories cross borders? How can we reimagine the future of our collective past? By bringing together multiple perspectives, I look for connections between arts, proletarianism, subalternity, and technology. I’ve taught at institutions including Habib University, Goldsmiths, and Konstfack. My works, spanning film, installation, and archival research, have been shown at the Venice Biennale, Ural Industrial Biennale, and Artencounter Biennale, as well as in museums such as Malmö Art Museum and Kalmar Art Museum. Across these contexts, I aim to rethink art’s role as both an archive of the past and a rehearsal space for more tangible futures. I am an editorial member of VIS – Journal for Nordic Artistic Research and am co-founder of Sarazad.art.

Dr Behzad Khosravi Noori

behzadkhosravi@gmail.com

b.khosravinoori@gold.ac.uk

Upcoming Events

Three and More Fools, Museum of Humour and Satire in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, March 2025

Latest publication

12+3 days of writing. Mowing the Grass: The Epistemic Violence and the Enemy of My Enemy, postcolonialpolitics.org, July 2025

Education

2022–2025  International Post-Doctoral funded by Vetenskapsrådet, Konstfack, Goldsmiths, University of London, Habib University Karachi.
2021  Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Art, Technology & Design programme (KTH Royal Institute of Technology + Konstfack), Stockholm, Sweden
– Dissertation: Three or Four Ir/relevant Stories: Art and Hyper-politics
2009–2011  M.A. in Art in the Public Realm, Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts & Design, Stockholm
2001–2004  M.A. in Moving Images (Animation), Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran
1993-1999 BA. Painting, Sistan & Baluchistan University, Zahedan

Selected Exhibitions

Gulf Centre of Photography, Gulf Photo Plus, The Life of an Itinerant, Dubai, 2024-2025
Bildmuseet, Umeå. A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, part of TV Trampoline exhibition, November 2023
Designarkivet Nybro, Around Here, On Hospitality, May 2023
WUK, One Belt Many Roads, 2023, Vienna
Kalmar Art Museum, A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, part of TV Trampoline exhibition, April 2022, Sweden
Österangen Konsthall, Brioni – a necromantic Theatre, together with Magnus Bärtås, February 2022, Sweden
Fabrika, Moscow, A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, part of TV Trampoline exhibition, September 2022, Russia
Mint, On the dermis of History, October 2021, Stockholm
Gallery Nova, WHW, Brioni – a necromantic Theatre, together with Magnus Bärtås, November 2020, Zagreb
HDLU, A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, Croatia, August 2019, Zagreb
12.0 Contemporary, Soul Catcher, November 2019, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Malmö Konstmuseum, A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, May 2019, Malmö
Kalmar Konstmuseum, A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, February 2019, Kalmar
Marabouparken Konsthall, A Monument to the Invisible Citizen, 2018, Stockholm.
Botkyrka konsthall, Accession Utopia, 2018, Stockholm,
The Kamal Lazaar Foundation (KLF), On the dermis of History, 2018, Tunis
The Life of an Itinerant Through a Pinhole, Centre of Photography (CFF), 2017, Stockholm.
Tranzit, A Short Story about a Cat, 2015, Iași, Romania
WUK, The Owl, The Queen, and the Modeller, together with Benji Boyadgian, Cross Section, 2016, Vienna
Skånes konstförening, Around About together with Benji Boyadgian, 2016, Lund
The Life of an Itinerant Through a Pinhole, Aran Gallery, 2015, Tehran
Tensta Konsthall, Reverberation, together with Rene Leon Rosales, 2014, Stockholm
New Media Society, A short story about a cat, 2013, Tehran
Tensta Konsthall, Reverberation, together with Rene Leon Rosales, 2012, Stockholm

Film Festival and Screening

Loods6, Amsterdam
Rencontres International, Paris
Moderna Museet, curated by Filmform
Best of Short Film Festivals, Cologne
Movies on War, Elverum, Norway (international competition)
Uppsala Short Film Festival (national competition)
Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (international competition – winner of the 1st prize of the jury of the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia)
Love and Anarchy, Helsinki Film Festival

Biennale and Art Festival

Ural Industrial Biennale, Asbest House of Culture, September 2021, Russia.
Venice Biennial, Research Pavilion, 2017.
Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara, Romania, 2019
Latvia Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga, Survival Kit, 2019
Islamabad Art Festival, 2019.
Karachi Biennale, 2024

Employment / Appointments

Goldsmiths, University of London
Researcher‑in‑Residence (Centre for Postcolonial Studies), Current position
Konstfack
Postdoc researcher, 2022- October 2025
PhD candidate 2015-2021
Researcher 2012-2013
Habib University, Karachi
Director of Academic Centres and assistant professor of practice (2022–2025)
VIS, Journal for Nordic Arctic Research
Editorial committee member, 2022- present.
Sarazad.art
Co-founder, Sarazad.art and editorial committee member 2021-
Soureh University of Art
Visiting faculty, Tehran and Shiraz, 2007-2008,
Azad University of Art, Tehran
2006-2008 and 2013-2014
Co-founder of Sarazad.art, an online dialogical journal bridging art, research, and transnational critique
Facilitator of community-based educational initiatives within Lyari Women’s Centre (Karachi)
School of Imagination (SOI), Ibrahim Hyderi Fisher Community (SOI), Founder

Publications & Editorial Work

Book

Three or Four Irrelevant Stories: Art and Hyper-politics, Konstfack Collection, 2021

Edited Contributions / Guest Editor

VIS, Editorial Board and Co-founder
“Contemporary Ar(t)chaeology”, Journal for Nordic Artistic Research
Brieftopia, Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
Special issue on artistic research in Postcolonial Studies, Routledge (forthcoming)
Sarazad.art, Editorial Board and Co-founder

Selected Essays & Articles

12+3 days of writing. Mowing the Grass: The Epistemic Violence and the Enemy of My Enemy, postcolonialpolitics.org, July 2025

Seascape of Imagination, Noiin Megazine, Helsinki 2023
A funambulist: Unearthing the narratives of Karachi’s colonial and national formation, Iaspis, Stockholm, Sweden
On the Dermis of Body, X-Ray of revolution edited by Shahram Khosravi.
Once upon a time, there was a monument, Filed, A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism, Spring 2022.
Unconscious Colonial Memory, GSG magazine, Colonialism today, edited by Iva Kovač and Sanja Horvatinčić (In English and Serbo-Croat)
A monument to the invisible citizen, Public Journal, Canada
The Life of an Itinerant through a Pinhole, Journal for Artistic Research (VIS)
This is Life, the first generation of the student movement in Iran in Kalantari film (in Farsi).
Catalogue for the project, a monument to the invisible citizen, Malmö Art Museum
From plop art to the phantasm of participation, Tazarv Art Magazine, Isfahan (in Farsi).
Abyssal thinking and Artistic research, The Future of Artistic Research, Uni Art Helsinki.
Catalogue for the project Accessing Utopia, in collaboration with Rene Leon Rosales, Venice Biennale.
The Strangeness of Banality, The Carnivalesque of Everyday Life.
Magnus Bärtås catalogue exhibition, Gothenburg Konsthall, 2015
The Fluid Narrative of Marginography: The Necessity of Microhistory in the Hyper-Politicised place, Time/Place/Body in Pirooz Kalantari’s Films, Microhistory ontology book, edited by Magnus Bärtås and Andrej Slávik.

(In Farsi)

In Etiquettes of Purification, Liminality and Heterotopic character represent the other from the other, Herfeh-honarmand art magazine.
Tehran has or doesn’t have a Pomegranate? Aftab Network Magazine.
What are we laughing at? Humour as a form of Political Resistance, Aftab Network Magazine.
About that And, and the missing points of history and aesthetics in contemporary Iranian documentary about the Iranian revolution in 1978. Aftab Network Magazine.
Rereading Ignorance: The Auto-Ethnographical Story Based on marginalia with Milan Kundera’s last novel, Herfeh- Honormand art magazine,
Fluidity Narration of Marginography, about Pirooz Kalantary’s Documentaries, November, Aftab Art Magazine,

Organized symposium and conferences

The Women’s Conference (February 2025)
South Asia from the Margins (April 2025)
Indus River, Water, and War (May 2025)
Necromancing, Goldsmith University, November 2023
The South, the North and the Silver Gelatin, Konstfack, 2019
The Future of Our Collective Past, Malmö Konstmuseum, 2019
World Politics and Animation, Kalmar Konstmuseum, 2019
Animation Against Despotism, Marabouparken Konsthall, 2018
Art and the question of Human Rights, together with Thomas Keenan, Konstfack, 2018
Unconscious Colonial Memory, 2018, Islamabad
Future of Multiculturalism, Mångkulturellt centrum, 2011, Stockholm

Keynote & Conference Presentations

Stanford University, An Itinerant Educator, 2024
Artistic Research and Prosopagnosia of the South, research week Konstfack, January 2023
When did we become Arian? Whiteness in South Asia and the Middle East, Habib University, March 2022.
Halifax University Department of Social Work, Canada, February 2020, Habib University, Karachi, Comparative Literature Study, November 2019
National College of Art, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, November 2019
The University of Westminster, School of Media and Design, making art, developing methods, re-imagining histories/Memories. Jun 2018
Historical Materialism Conference, AUB Beirut 2017
Who Owns Walter Benjamin? On the Place and Non-Place of Radical Thought, Ramallah 2015
The Future of Multiculturalism, Cardiff University, 2012