The 4th and 5th Version
Eshrat Safavian Erfanian
10 - 15 April 2015
Eshrat Safavian Erfanian Unveils 'The 4th and 5th Version' at Azad Gallery, Tehran. Multimedia artist explores technology’s transformation of landscape and perception in groundbreaking exhibition
The 4th and 5th Version, a solo exhibition by internationally acclaimed artist Dr Eshrat Safavian Erfanian. Running from 10 to 15 April 2015, the show features new multimedia works interrogating how digital technologies reshape our visual language and understanding of the environment.
Erfanian’s practice investigates the metamorphosis of physical landscapes into technologically mediated "environments". Drawing parallels to Renaissance artists who revolutionised perception through linear perspective, she questions how tools like digital mapping now redefine our visual lexicon. The exhibition’s title, The 4th and 5th Version, signals iterative explorations of this theme— where Google Earth imagery fragmented into fractal patterns resembling Persian tapestries.
In this new body of work, Erfanian manipulates satellite visuals, urban data, and algorithmic processes to create dynamic video projections. Images of Tehran and other global sites dissolve into abstract geometries before recomposing, mirroring capitalism’s restless transformation of space. Soundscapes blending folk melodies and electronic textures further immerse viewers in the tension between tradition and technological rupture.
Dr Erfanian (PhD, York University; MFA, University of Toronto; Whitney ISP alumna) merges rigorous academic research with incisive social critique. Her decades-long projects, like Time Caught by the Tail—documenting industrial decline in Toronto—reflect her focus on capital’s impact on geography. Since 2005, she has shifted towards examining technology’s aesthetic and ecological consequences, asking:
"When ‘landscape’ becomes ‘environment’ via tech intervention, what new visual metaphors emerge?"
Her work has been exhibited globally (Jewish Museum NYC, Incheon Biennale, Mercer Union Toronto) and recognised by the Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council.
Eshrat Safavian Erfanian
From The 4th and 5th Version series, 2015
Giclée print and 23 K Gold leaf on photo paper
29 x 29 cm
Eshrat Safavian Erfanian
From The 4th and 5th Version series, 2015
Giclée print and 23 K Gold leaf on photo paper
29 x 29 cm
Eshrat Safavian Erfanian
From The 4th and 5th Version series, 2015
Giclée print and 23 K Gold leaf on photo paper
29 x 29 cm
Forouhar’s artistic journey began at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran in 1984, before continuing in Offenbach, Germany. She settled permanently in Germany in 1991. The assassination of her parents, prominent Iranian activists and intellectuals Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, in 1998 profoundly shaped her practice. Reflecting on this tragedy, she notes, “My efforts to investigate this crime had a great impact on my personal and artistic sensibilities … I tried to distil this conflict of displacement and transfer of meaning, turning it into a source of creativity.” Her art thus serves as both a critique of cultural and political systems and a means of processing personal trauma and displacement.