Sanaz Sohrabi

Sanaz Sohrabi (b.1988, Tehran) is a research-based artist and filmmaker, currently a doctoral candidate at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University, Montréal. Her doctoral artistic research project maps an unlikely geopolitical calendar of political affinities, competing and contradictory national projects wherein oil was both the agent of imperial power and the catalyst for anticolonial political projects, examining the ways in which oil was tasked to navigate the political task of nation-building on the one hand and transnational solidarity during the global decolonization on the other. Sohrabi’s work has been screened and exhibited internationally at the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Iran Cinéma Vérité Festival (Winner of International Mid-length), IndieLisboa (Portugal) - Best Short Film Award, FicValdivia (Chile) - Special Jury Mention, Montréal International Documentary Festival, Mimesis Documentary Film Festival (Best Documentary Short), Ann Arbor Film Festival (Jury Award), Sheffield Doc/Fest (UK), SAVVY Contemporary, Centre Clark Montréal, and Kunstmuseum Bonn's VIDEONALE 16 (Germany). Sohrabi has been awarded numerous fellowships and residencies such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Forum Transregionale Studien at American University of Beirut, SOMA Summer School DF, México, Est-Nord-Est résidence d’artistes, and Vermont Studio Center. Her most recent essay titled “Ruminations on Petropublics Across Borders,” was published by Kunstlicht Magazine in Amsterdam, along with recent presentations at the Visible Evidence Conference in Frankfurt, and the Experiences of Oil Conference in Stavanger, Norway.