Nazgol Ansarinia
Photo: Tom Callemin
Nazgol Ansarinia
Iran born 1979
Level 2
NGV International
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PROJECT
Nazgol Ansarinia’s practice investigates Tehran’s urban space as a mirror for the political, economic and ideological events in the city. These resin casts present a scale model of private swimming pools built during the Los Angeles–inspired optimism of Tehran’s urbanist project during the late 1960s. Following the Iranian Revolution from 1979, and the rise of modesty laws, these pools, drained and disused, now lie dormant.
Depicting these hollow architectural spaces, which are unused despite the spiralling cost of land and Tehran’s rapid urban densification, Ansarinia reflects on the significance of these empty pools. She states that their presence suggests ‘a wish for them to be filled and used in an unforeseen future but holds on to the memory of them once full’.
ABOUT
Nazgol Ansarinia is an Iranian interdisciplinary visual artist. Her work examines the systems and networks that underpin her daily life such as everyday objects, routines, events and experiences, and the relationship they form to a larger social context. Born and raised in Tehran, Ansarinia’s practice reflects upon tensions between private worlds and the wider socioeconomic realm. Ansarinia graduated from the London College of Communication in 2001 before taking a Master of Fine Arts at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2003.
Purchased with funds donated by Trawalla Foundation, 2022