Writer and Curator
Tirdad Zolghadr is a freelance curator and writes regularly for frieze and other publications. He began work in the field of journalism and documentary film, and was co-founder of the Tehran-based feminist online magazine http://www.badjens.com (1999) and co-director of Tehran 1380 (with Solmaz Shahbazi), a documentary on mass housing estates in Tehran (2001). His recent film Tropical Modernism addresses the history of the Iranian left and was premiered at the Oberhausen short film festival (2006). Over recent years, a main theoretical preoccupation in his work has been the mise-en-scene of internationalism in contemporary art. As a curator, Zolghadr initiated the exhibition project ‘Ethnic Marketing’ at the Kunsthalle Geneva with M. Anderfuhren (2004), and in various venues in Tehran in April 2006. Zolghadr also co-curated the 7th International Sharjah Biennial and is currently preparing an exhibition at the Cubitt Gallery London as well as his contribution to Manifesta 6. Zolghadr is a founding member of the SHAHRZAD design collective and is shortly to publish his novel Softcore with Telegram Books, London.
