Roya Keshavarz
ARTIST IN RESIDENCY – AUGUST 2025
Project – Context
The Weight of Breath is a lecture performance and the starting point for a forthcoming feature documentary that, through a personal lens shaped by displacement and maternal instincts, explores themes of trauma, a child’s illness, bodily consciousness, and resistance. By centering the body as a narrative hub, the work explores the reconstruction of fractured identity through the sensorial: movement becomes form, repetition becomes a path to variation and seriality, and artistic practice becomes a means of survival.
BIO
Roya Keshavarz (b. 1988, Tehran) is a visual artist, filmmaker, community organizer, and activist. Her work explores the body, disability, and the social systems that influence both.
She began her artistic journey as a sculptor and later earned a graduate degree in Film from the University of Anglia Ruskin in the UK, where she focused on experimental documentary.
Through her work, Keshavarz aims to slow down time, create space for multiple perspectives, allow emotions to lead, and uncover the systems that shape our experiences.
Keshavarz has participated in the AAIR Antwerp Residency in collaboration with Kooshk Residency, and has exhibited her work in international venues and galleries such as Farvahar Gallery, Mohsen Gallery, Hinterland Gallery, Hepworth Museum and more.