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Foad Alijani

wetenschap & techniek , video , Media , Lichaam , installatie , Artistiek onderzoek , Archieven

Foad Alijani is a media artist whose work draws from memory and imagination. Through imaginal maps, installations, and film, his research-led practice inhabits lived experience, moving across the terrain of embodied perception. Central to his practice is the concept of the image-event, concerned with the emergence of images. He explores how inner and outer worlds intersect and transform one another, forming an architecture of experience. Since 2018, he has led his curatorial initiative, Paadmaan Projects, centered on experience as a course of dialogue through art, science, and technology.

Dancing Moon
Dancing Moon - Dancing Moon video mapping (five channels); 1:06 minutes in the fourth season of Canvas supported and presented at TivoliVredenburg Utrecht, Netherlands, January 2026 curated by Julius Ponten soundtrack: Samir Ait Moh technical support: Mr.Beam studio --- Observing the moon’s phases from a single vantage point over a month traces a shape that can abstractly resemble the letter N. This movement is a visual poem where the moon shifts, hides, and sometimes is obscured by clouds. In the vast sky of life, this remains a metaphorical reminder of constant alteration. Resistance is the constant negotiation between what is and what could be. Just as the moon maintains its orbit while it may be hidden, resistance is the act of holding a vision when the path forward is obscured.
Mist
Mist - essay film; 20:55 minutes, 16:9 color supported by CBK Rotterdam produced in the Netherlands, 2025 --- Memory is the window through which we observe fleeting moments like fragile, drifting clouds. The essay film Mist explores the interrelation between memory within immediate experience and the neural mechanics of sight. Drawing on the physics of light and the physiology of the eye, the film reflects on how perception operates as both a biological and mnemonic act. It traces the shifting thresholds between seeing and remembering; vision here is not a neutral act of observation but a process of translation where images sediment, dissolve, and reemerge as reconstructions. Image: Mist presentation at Zipspace Rotterdam, December 2025
N
N - photo and video installation (single channel); 1:30 minutes Nida Art Colony Nida, Lithuania, December 2024 opening performers: Ayse Idil, Despina Sanida-Krezia, Egle A. Benkunskytė, Hannah van der Schaaf, Helena Estrela, Javier Rodriguez Perez, Liam Warren, Magdalena Beliavska --- In the stillness of night, the sky invites observation with scattered trees around and a mountain shaping the distant skyline. If we were to stand in the same location for a whole month observing the moon, a pattern would eventually appear. Think of a timelapse photo of these movements in the sky, and it might seem as if the moon dances with its moonrise times and positions shifting as phases evolve. Observing the moon's phases in this way, from new moon to full and back again, reveals a shape that can abstractly resemble the letter N. Think of a visual poem, a symbol, the letter N formed with strokes drawn both from the bottom up and the top down, with a single diagonal line cutting through the verticals. This simple shape reflects a connectivity between two parallels, much like how memory moves between past and future passing through the tunnel of the present. The act of writing the letter from the bottom up, going against the natural pull of gravity, symbolizes the human ability to reach back into memory while simultaneously moving forward into unknown futures. The crossing line, in this context, becomes a metaphor for the meeting point of these two directions in time, merging into a single, unified form that exists in both realms at once; the present. How time is experienced can resemble this letter’s pattern, and in regarding observation of the phenomenon, what if we change our position? Yes, depending on the location, the visual changes will be different. But how about our feelings and experiences in various spaces? In so doing, the observational shift emphasizes the active engagement of consciousness with the environment.
Cloud and Moon
Cloud and Moon - Centrale Fies Dro, Italy, July 2024 --- a portrayal of the memory to the prospection; mapping the imagination… About a year ago, the clouds returned to my attention through an encounter in which the moon drifted among them, anchoring my awareness in a visual moment. This exploration started with a fleeting glimpse of the sky while I moved in a car at night. Afterward, I observed that phenomenon for eight months. This exploration turned into an experiential, perceptual understanding of my surroundings. It was like a reflection in the sky or rather, a trace recorded by the clouds and moon, like an image of that specific moment and place. The conversation between the moon and clouds in the wide theater of the night sky can be read as a poetic dance of presence and absence, an endless celestial ballet. The moon and clouds are different entities, separated by vast distances. The moon is a celestial body about three hundred and eighty-four thousand kilometers away from Earth, and clouds are a weather phenomenon within the atmosphere. They meet each other from our point of view on Earth, which creates a poetic visual and metaphorical association. As clouds pass before the moon, they soften or obscure its light, changing how it appears from where we stand. In the same way, distractions or challenges can temporarily shadow our path through life. This dynamic relationship, where the moon either hides behind or shines through the clouds, can be understood as a metaphor for human perception and experience, referring to the ever-changing way individuals understand and interact with the world around them.
When I Was Five
When I Was Five - photo and video installation (single channel); 3:23 minutes PAF (Performing Arts Forum) St Erme, France, March 2024 opening performers: Nada Gambier and Kito --- The project is based on my childhood memories, aged five, with an approach to reconstructing past experiences through perception and imagination. By looking at the scientific narrative of the delayed-choice double-slit experiment in quantum physics as a narrative point, the project explored how our act of observing memories can influence and reshape our understanding of both the past and the future, highlighting their non-linear interplay. It suggests that perception, when intertwined with imagination, transcends the linear progression of time, creating a fluid and multidimensional experience in reconstructing memories. The project explored a reflection on how memory is shaped by what we observe, how we imagine it, and the embodied loops between internal cognition and external environments.
Between Lines
Between Lines - in the group exhibition As 13 Grams of Lines private space, Tehran, Iran, 2021 --- Letters, words, and sentences coalesce into an image as they form a text. When the predominant content of a text bears a personal aspect, this visual representation gains significance as a semantic image for the author. This aspect becomes particularly poignant when discussing the manuscript of the text. Engaging in this style of writing transformed personal note-taking into a nuanced artistic and visual exercise for me, largely due to its function in stimulating mental imagery. While the practice held immense internal importance, the resulting writings often proved less legible due to the contextual cues embedded within the text. The project aimed to chronicle the narrative of this unique approach to note-taking, presented a series of documents pertinent to the subject, and offered sensory feedback on the methodology prevalent during that period. It also served as an archival mapping of this writing practice and its associated objects.
From the Map
From the Map - Paaygaah art space supported by Frame Contemporary Art Finland Keresht, Iran, December 2018 --- Laura Puska: To begin with, Alijani recalled the Hegelian term Aufheben. Often translated into English as sublation, Hegel used the term to describe a process of interaction between a thesis and antithesis. According to Hegel, this interplay was simultaneously preserving and changing. With the dialectic process in mind, Alijani started constructing his work. The site-specific approach of his work continued to play a part through the email exchange with his exchange partner Salla Valle: Alijani asked Valle to provide a screenshot of any area of ​​Tehran. This shot he combined with other elements to compose the map element of his installation
Overlap Maps
Overlap Maps - Da Theater House, Tehran, Iran, April 2018 --- Overlap Maps is an installation that explores the entanglement of perceptual experience by juxtaposing an ancient and a modern world map. Housed within an old underground bathhouse, the installation utilizes the site's elements to translate flat images into an atmosphere. The modern map is placed in an existing vertical pipe, while the ancient map is installed in a horizontal plastic pipe. Both maps were intentionally treated with mud. Light and shadow fall across the rugged textures of the walls and the dimly lit space. The combination of these elements, including the vapor scent of the environment, forms the core of the work.
The Herbal Tea
The Herbal Tea - video (single channel); 1:44 minutes project for Interface Inagh November 2017 curated by Alannah Robins scientific advisor: Marie Louise Heffernan --- This project is the result of a collaboration with the Interface institute, located in the west of Ireland. There are various beautiful landscapes in that region. Their main approach has been concerned with connecting science and art. Apart from this, since there are also numerous historical aspects in scientific-natural research in the area, I decided to design and create a herbal tea. For this purpose, I consulted with a scientific researcher who owns her own brand for herbal medicine. The visual aspect of the location which I felt from the photographs inspired me to consider a soothing tea. This tea also invites someone to peace. The composition of the tea is as follows: Coriander Seed + Hypericum Perforatum + Lavender + Dracocephalum + Valerian

Body Memory workshop

Datum:
Locatie: The Hub

[ Workshop with Foad Alijani] / The Body Memory workshop seeks to explore the relationships between our bodies and the memories they carry, as well as how these embodied experiences might influence our perceptions, emotions, and interactions. Through movement improvisation, partnering and dialogue we will look into how memories stored in the body are not static but continually shape our lived experiences as they interact with new circumstances and sensations.

https://www.thehubarnhem.com/

Body Memory workshop

Datum:
Locatie: Corpo Rotterdam

[ Workshop with Foad Alijani] / The Body Memory workshop seeks to explore the relationships between our bodies and the memories they carry, as well as how these embodied experiences might influence our perceptions, emotions, and interactions. Through movement improvisation, partnering and dialogue we will look into how memories stored in the body are not static but continually shape our lived experiences as they interact with new circumstances and sensations.

https://www.stichtingcorpo.nl/

Paadmaan Video Event

Datum:
Locatie: Rozenstraat art space

[Curators: Foad Alijani and Greg Leshé] / Paadmaan Video Event is an open-ended, alternative platform for video screenings with itinerant venues, cultural engagement and discourse of interdisciplinary forms in video, born in Tehran, based in Amsterdam, organized by Paadmaan Projects.

https://paadmaan.org/pve/
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