Nazgol Ansarinia IRAN, 1979
How Things Work: The Practice of Nazgol Ansarinia Nazgol Ansarinia’s work of the past seven years examines the systems and networks that underpin her daily life. Born and raised in Tehran, she trained in design in London before completing an MFA in the U.S. and returning to her native Iran. These multiple trajectories, of geography and approach, inform her methods and the subjects of her explorations. Ansarinia often seeks to reveal the “inner workings of a social system” by taking its components apart and putting them
back together, to uncover assumptions, connections and underlying rules of engagement. Her practice is characterized by an emphasis on research and analysis that can be traced back to her background in design and engagement with critical theory. Her mode of working covers diverse media—video, three-dimensional objects, found street signs and drawings—and subjects as varied as automated telephone systems, American security policy, memories associated with a family house and the
patterns of Persian carpets. Three series of works from the last three years—Untitled (Do not give your opinion), 2006; NSS book series (2008); and Patterns series (2007– 9)—highlight the uncovering of systems that is at the core of her practice. In Untitled (Do not give your opinion), 2006, she brings the language and aesthetics of public signs commissioned by government departments and dispensing moral advice to the city’s inhabitants into the gallery space. This dislocation draws attention to
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