Zam Zadeh

Zam Zadeh (whose real name is Azam Masoumzadeh) was born in Isfahan, Iran in 1989. She lives and works in Brussels since 2012.

This visual artist defines herself as a “digital storyteller”. She digs deep into her childhood memories, her roots and her origins to set up her artistic practice and a narrative specific to her work very connected to the possibilities offered by some of the most recent medias.

Her art is social but also humorous and deeply philosophical. If it finds its roots in Persian tradition and poetry, her approach brings to life Persian wisdoms, with very contemporary medias and forms, to make them revealers of our time. 

This series of works is taken from his exhibition, “A jug of wine and nothing else”. They each illustrate a poem of the Rubaïyat, a famous collection of poems written by Iranian scholar and poet Omar Khayyam which dates from the 11th century and which the artist revisits here with very current concerns in mind. Khayyam’s poems question our relationship to life and death and further, questions the meaning of life itself. In particular, they show us the most epicurean ways possible to enjoy your time spent on earth. Zam Zadeh is also inspired for this series of illustrations by ancient Persian miniatures which she reinterprets graphically and sociologically by situating them in our time.

In addition to the graphic productions that we present here, note that Zam Zadeh recently designed a virtual reality animation entitled “Glad that I came, not sorry to depart” which won the jury prize at the 2019 Anima festival in Brussels. Zam Zadeh has a background in speculative narration at L’ERG (Brussels), trained as a comic artist from Sint-Lukas School of Art (Brussels) and Digital storyteller from Kask (Ghent). Her work has been shown in South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium. You can see more of her works on her website.