Bahareh Khoshooee

Born Tehran, Iran

Bahareh Khoshooee is currently an Instructor at the University of South Florida Institute for Research in Art. She writes, “Searching for my identity, a necessarily fluid process, is laden with meaning—as a female, Iranian video artist and performer, I engage the deceptively simple question: “Who am I?” Because of the nature of my subject matter, I am unable to show my work in my home country. There is always a cultural/religious transgression in my pieces (due to my use of footage of unveiled women—mostly myself, personal home movies, religious television shows, etc.). This creates a dislocation in my work on a foundational level.”

“My videos are a combination of found footage and original material. I use my body as a tool, my performance as a process…Dressing/undressing, putting makeup on/wiping it off, dancing, gazing at the camera, using the veil sometimes as a fashion tool, sometimes as an inner organ or an embryo, these are the examples of what I do in front of camera to express different emotions, thoughts, personas. With the help of repetition and glitch and layering different materials on top of each other both physically and visually I occupy and accentuate instability and transience.”