Instruments of Viewing and Obscurity

Rooted in Nazgol Ansarinia’s exploration of Tehran’s mass housing and the visual logic of its architecture, the talk will examine how architectural forms and regulatory frameworks govern systems of visibility, control, and historical transformation. Using a constellation of materials — glass-like surfaces, steel, concrete, and large-scale video projections — she constructs a fragmented urban landscape that negotiates visibility, while exposing the structures that shape it. Her practice diverts dominant narratives of minimalism and materialism by reframing them within the architectural and bureaucratic afterlives of modernism in the Global South, where control is often embedded not in spectacle, but in structure.

Through the talk, we will trace the installation’s choreographies of looking — between seen and being seen, interior and exterior — and reflect on how Ansarinia’s work reveals the architecture of social control.

Time: 6PM - 7PM

Date: Thursday, 18 September 2025

Venue: Common Room, WH51, Alserkal Avenue - Google Pin

Click here to RSVP.

Bio:

Nazgol Ansarinia’s work examines the systems and networks that underpin her daily life such as everyday objects, routines, events and experiences, and the relationship they form to a larger social context. Her recent projects, ranging across sculpture, installation, drawing, and video, represent ways of understanding the role of architecture in delineating interior and exterior spaces and private and public spheres. Informed by her interdisciplinary background in art and design, projects range in approach and material to offer a perspective that considers the aesthetic and theoretical implications of vernacular architectural practices within the built environment. Ansarinia’s works are largely observational and technical in their scope, offering insight into the issues that are most pressing and urgent for today’s cities and the populations that inhabit them.

Lucas Morin is a Senior Curator at Art Jameel. His work engages with animals, infrastructure, cities, and the politics of emotions. He was previously curator at Bétonsalon — Centre for Art and Research (Paris) and worked at the Sursock Museum (Beirut). He graduated from Sciences Po Paris and Paris-Sorbonne University in Philosophy and Social Sciences. He loves books, cats, and public transportation systems.

Image caption:

Nazgol Ansarinia, Instruments of Viewing and Obscurity. Installation view at Green Art Gallery, Dubai, 2025

Photo by SeeingThings-Ismail. Courtesy the Artist and Green Art Gallery, Dubai