Mohammadreza Mirzaei ( fa, محمدرضا میرزایی; born 1994) is an Iranian photographer and writer, living in Santa Barbara, California.
Education
Mirzaei studied
graphic design
Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscip ...
at
IRIB
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB; fa, صدا و سيمای جمهوری اسلامی ايران, ''Sedā va Sīmā-ye Jomhūri-ye Eslāmi-ye Īrān'', , formerly called National Iranian Radio and Television until the Iranian rev ...
Art School and
Italian Literature
Italian literature is written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian, includin ...
at
Azad University
The Islamic Azad University (IAU; fa, دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی, ''Dāneshgāh-e Āzād-e Eslāmi'') is a private university system headquartered in Tehran, Iran. It is one of the largest comprehensive systems of universities, co ...
in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
. In 2012, he moved to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
to pursue his MFA at
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
. He is now a Ph.D. student at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Work
In 2006, Mirzaei did a photo series called ''Humans'', which has been exhibited in 4 solo shows in Iran, Turkey, UAE and Russia as well as in some group exhibitions in Australia and Italy.
Michael Kenna has acclaimed this photo series by an essay: ''Mr. Mirzaei, with reserved sensibility, kindly provides us with an opportunity to quietly reflect and consider the reasons for our existence. It is a worthy subject to ponder, and this is a worthy group of photographs''. Mirzaei's photographs have been also credited by his compatriot photographer
Mitra Tabrizian Mitra Tabrizian (born in Tehran) is a British-Iranian photographer and film director. She is a professor of photography at the University of Westminster, London. Mitra Tabrizian has exhibited and published widely and in major international museums a ...
, who admired the surreal quality and the sense of isolation in his works.
In 2008, his photo series ''Rewind'' won the first prize of the 3rd photo feast of Tehran's University of Art.
In Mirzaei's series ''The Encounters'' he photographed other people in the act of making photographs.
Mirzaei's book ''What I Don't Have'' (2013) contains a long story and a photo series.
Mirzaei is the translator of ''La Grammatica di Dio'', short stories by
Stefano Benni from the Italian to the Persian.
He is founding editor of ''Dide Magazine'' and was one of the jurors of ''International Photobook Award'' in 2011. His photos have been exhibited in different biennials and annuals including ''Bogotá Fotográfica'' in 2011 and ''Journées photographiques de Bienne'' in 2012.
Publications
*''What I Don't Have''. Bradipo, 2013.
*''Here Comes The Sun''. University of Pennsylvania Common Press, 2014. With an essay by
Carlos Basualdo.
*''Dialectics of Seeing''. Blue Tiger, 2018. With Gordon Stillman.
*''Postcards''. Blue Tiger, 2019.
Notes
External links
*
Iranian photographers
1986 births
Living people
{{Iran-artist-stub