Elham Haakansson-Eshraghian (Perth, 1996) is a Bahá’í video artist. She explores the Iranian diaspora within the Australian community and uncovers her family’s experience of displacement during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Eshraghian research examines the inter-generational dialogue between the first (those who were displaced) and second generation (children of those displaced) in an attempt to understand her mother’s experience of displacement and escape.
She addresses the emotional impact felt and the need for empathy in response to the current global social and political climate. It is through the affective poetic space of installation art and aesthetic devices of choreographed performance, archival documentation, and symbolic cultural indicators that allow for a greater understanding of the experience of loss and grief that takes hold through states of displacement.
Eshraghian graduated with first-class Honours in Fine Arts from the University of Western Australia, School of Design (2017) and is currently continuing her research at the university. Eshraghian received the Dr. Harold Schenberg Art Fellowship Award during the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art’s Hatched Exhibition (2018) and the Jean Callander Art Prize for her work, Bohrân. Recently, Eshraghian has exhibited in the Lock up Gallery, Newcastle (New South Wales, Australia), the WA Emerging Artists Exhibit in Heathcote Gallery and for the Brilliant; Undercurrent Exhibit, Fremantle Moore’s Gallery.
She has exhibited in Melbourne as part of C3 Contemporary Arts Exhibit, a finalist for the John Stringer Art Award held at John Curtin Art Gallery and was recently awarded an Artist-In-Residence at Frabica, Treviso in Italy, to take place in the coming future.
IMAGE: Bohrân, 2017, two-channel video, Intsallation view: Hatched Exhibition, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. Dear Mona, 2018, single-channel film, installation view: WA Emerging Artist Exhibition, Heathcote Gallery. Photos courtesy of the artist.
