About

Azin Seraj
Alameda CA United States
Email: 

azin-500

Instagram: _azin.s_

Azin Seraj is an Iranian native and Canadian citizen who currently lives in the United States. Her video, photography, and multimedia installations reflect the varied textures of her transnational experience of displacement and alienation but also of unexpected connections. She uses sounds and images to create visually and socially lush experiences, layering spaces and multiple time frames. With an interdisciplinary approach to marginalized experiences, Seraj explores connections between colonial histories, citizen journalism, activist networks and contemporary politics in South West Asia, South Asia and North Africa’s diaspora.

Seraj’s work has been featured internationally in exhibitions and festivals including SFMOMA, Open Space Arts Society in Canada, Tate Liverpool, (S8) Monstra De Cinema Periférico in Spain, Berkeley Art Museum, Minnesota Street Project, Chicago Underground Film Festival, and Croatian Association of Artists. She has been the recipient of the 2019 Kala Media Artist Award.


EDUCATION

  • Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors Distinction (University of Victoria, Canada, 2007)
  • Master of Fine Arts (University of California Berkeley,US, 2010)

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

    • 2020, Media Awards Exhibition, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, US  (upcoming)
    • 2020, Wander Woman 2, SFCamerawork, San Francisco, US (upcoming)
    • 2019, Introductions 2019, Root Division, San Francisco, US
    • 2019, Diaspora Voiced, Rhythmix Cultural Works, Alameda, US
    • 2019, Once at Present: Contemporary Art of Bay Area Iranian Diaspora, Minnesota Street Project,
               San Francisco, US 
    • 2019, Choreographies of Disclosure, Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, US 
    • 2018, Queer Value, The Alice Gallery, Seattle, US 
    • 2018, Betweenscapes, SOMArts, San Francisco, US
    • 2018, Echoes of Loss, Coconino Center For The Arts, Arizona, US
    • 2017, Multimedia & Performance Festival, SOMArts, San Francisco, US
    • 2016, Fort Nights, Fort Mason Center For Arts & Culture, San Francisco, US
    • 2016, POP-UP PALMYRA, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, Berkeley, US
    • 2016, Locate Iran, Locate Project, Online Gallery
    • 2014, Theory of Survival: Fabrications, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, US
    • 2013, In Our Hands, Croatian Association of Artists, Zagreb, Croatia
    • 2013, Sublunar, Solo Exhibition, Martina Johnston, Berkeley, US
    • 2013, Only a Signal Shown, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, US
    • 2013, Persona, Maloney Art Gallery, College of Saint Elizabeth, NJ, US
    • 2012, Temporary Structures, Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco, US
    • 2012, In the CURRENTS: Bay Area Iranian/American Art Today, Asian Resource Center Gallery, Oakland, US
    • 2010, Shadowshop, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, US
    • 2010, Memory Mine, University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, US
    • 2010, No Right Angles, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, US
    • 2009, Time is a River: Colima Project, Martin Wong Gallery, San Francisco State University, US
    • 2008-2010, Urban Jalousie, First International Roaming Biennial of Tehran
    • 2007, Workbench – B Sides, the fifty-fifty, Victoria, Canada
    • 2007, All Sorts, Audain Gallery, University of Victoria, Canada
    • 2006, Female Body, Audain Gallery, University of Victoria, Canada
  • 2006, Corporeality: Real and Imagined, Collaboration between University of Victoria, Canada and Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Mexico


SELECTED SCREENINGS/FESTIVALS

    • 2020, Third Muslim Digital Video Art Festival, San Francisco, US (upcoming)
    • 2020, QUEER MENA FESTIVAL, Hypnos Cinema, Sweden (upcoming)
    • 2019, Qinfolk Festival | QTPOC Film Art and Mental Health, Ithaca, US
    • 2017, The Artists as Amateur, Tate Liverpool Film, Liverpool, UK
    • 2017, Sea to shining sea, (S8) Monstra De Cinema Periférico, Coruña, Spain
    • 2017, Sea to radiant sea, Crater Lab, Barcelona, Spain
    • 2017, Crossroads Film Festival, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, US
    • 2016, 23rd Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, US
    • 2015, Queer Shorts, Luggage Store Project ,  San Francisco, US
    • 2015, Flying Broom: Ankara Women’s Film Festival, Ankara, Turkey
    • 2014, Female Eye Film Festival, Toronto, Canada
  • 2014, Mission Eye & Ear, Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco, US
  • 2013, Berkeley Dance Project 2013: Aperture, Zellerbach Play House, UC Berkeley, US
  • 2013, SPLITTING THE FRAME, Interface Gallery, Oakland, US
  • 2012, MENA Experimental: Recent Experimental Film and New Media from the Middle East, North Africa and Diasporas, The Arts at CIIS in collaboration with Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco, US
  • 2011, Create: The Artists Are Present, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, US
  • 2010, Eisner Film Award Screening, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, US
  • 2009, Antimatter Film Festival, Victoria, Canada
  • 2008, Casualties of Progress, Performing Arts Lodge, Vancouver, Canada

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES

    • 2019, Media Artist Award, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, US
    • 2019, Best of Show: Jury Award, Rhythmix Cultural Works, Alameda, CA, US
    • 2010, Resident Artist at Open Space Artist Run Centre, Victoria, Canada
    • 2010, Eisner Film Prize, UC Berkeley, US
    • 2009, Senior Scholarship Award, British Columbia Art Council, Canada
    • 2009, Resident Artist in Colima Project, Colima, El Salvador
    • 2009, Eisner Prize Visual Arts, UC Berkeley, US
    • 2008, Art Practice Departmental Awards, UC Berkeley, US
  • 2008, Senior Scholarship Award, British Columbia Art Council, Vancouver, Canada

SELECTED CURATORIAL WORK

• 2020, War in Vacant Sky, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, US (in collaboration with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto)
• 2020,  Breaching Towards Other Futures, Counter Pulse, San Francisco, US (in collaboration with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto)
• 2020, Where do you want ghosts to reside?, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, US (in collaboration with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto)
• 2018, Point of Departure, Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco, US,  (Chromo Collective)
• 2017, Engram, Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco, US,  (student screening)
• 2017, Prolepsis, Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley, CA, (student exhibition)
• 2016, Ellipsis: Three Points in Constellation, Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley, US (student exhibition)
• 2015, Terminal, Artists’ Television Access, San Francisco, US  (student screening)
• 2015, Junction, Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley, US (student exhibition)
• 2014, Shades of Impact, Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley, US (Disclose Collective)
• 2014, Digital Artists Collective Show, Berkeley City College, US
• 2012, Quasi Public-Semi Private, Wurster Courtyard, UC Berkeley, US  (student site-specific exhibition)
• 2011, Falling Below Rising Above, Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley, US  (student exhibition)
• 2007, Houshang Seyhoun: The Fine Art of Chaos, Audain Gallery, University of Victoria, Canada

PUBLIC INSTALLATIONS

    • 2018, Supersymmetry, Peephole Cinema SF, San Francisco, US
    • 2017, We Will Not Be Silent, Projection on Oakland Police Department, Courtesy of Disclose Collective
    • 2013, RESISTANCE, Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, US
    • 2013, Temescal Street Cinema, Oakland, US
  • 2010, Pulse Interval, Open Space, Artist Run Center, Victoria, Canada