Shirin Khalatbari

Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Shirin Khalatbari earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Near Eastern art and archaeology at Università di Roma, La Sapienza before coming to San Francisco State to pursue her MFA.

Khalatbari’s work explores the visual traces of history, including the impacts and legacies of colonialism, in order to create transformative environments in which perception of the present and reality are challenged. By combining photography, painting, sculpture, sound and video, her work produces an ambiance that defamiliarizes one’s sense of time and space.