Mahsa Biglow is a New York-based, Iranian-born interdisciplinary artist and writer. Her research-based work investigates the intersection of art, mass media, technology, and postcolonialism. She explores these themes in video, installation, and performance through storytelling, oral history, and found footage. With her multi-channel video and sound installations, she creates immersive spaces that grapple with the agenda-setting role of television, social media, and other mass-distributed media. She earned an MFA from Rutgers University and a BFA from the University of Tehran. A writer and associate editor at Kaarnamaa; A Journal of Art History and Criticism, Biglow writes critiques and reviews on contemporary art in the Persian language. Her works have been exhibited nationally and internationally at Mana Contemporary (NJ), Visual Arts Center (TX), The Zimmerli Art Museum (NJ), Vermont Studio Center (VT), The Immigrant Artist Biennial (NY), sUgAR Gallery (AR), Goggleworks Center for the Arts (PA), American Hungarian Foundation (NJ), Stroboskop Art Space in Warsaw, and Silk Road Gallery in Tehran, Iran.
Tell her I say Hi!
Ayana, 10, and Azma, 16, are second-generation immigrant Americans living in a Bengali-populated neighborhood in Brooklyn. The film mirrors their lives with those of another sister duo, Mahdis, 23, and her sister, 29, who are struggling with a long-distance relationship due to the older sister's immigration to the US. The movie tells the true story of separated and soon-to-be-separated sisters in Tehran and Brooklyn through a two-channel video format.
In-between boundaries:
In-Between Boundaries is a collection of short video portraits I filmed in Tehran from 2014 to 2016. I approached strangers who were stuck in traffic in their cars and asked for their permission to take their pictures. Many immediately posed for the camera.
Letting off steam:
In this work I examine the recent uprising in Iran through the lens of nature. Using found footage of active volcanoes in Hawaii and footage from the protests that followed the murder of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in September 2023, I seek to evoke the duality of destruction and renewal.
