BIOGRAPHY

Soheila Azadi is an interdisciplinary visual artist and lecturer based in Chicago and Iran. Born in the capital of Islamic cities, Esfahan, Azadi absorbed story-telling skills through Persian miniature drawings since she was nine. Azadi’s inspirations come from her experiences of being a woman while living under Theocracy. Now residing in the U.S. Azadi is dedicated to transnational feminism with a passionate devotion to the ways in which race, religion, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity intersect. Azadi uses performance art and performative installations as methods to both materialize and narrate stories about women’s everyday struggle in the world. Her use of fabric in her works is deployed critically and sensually to amplify customs that serve to classify, separate, oppress, and potentially / unknowingly liberates those obfuscated by such a tradition.
Azadi currently teaches at SAIC while she is an artist in resident at Hatch Projects.