Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 2000 Tehran, Iran

Year of Migration to the UK: 2020

Biography

Contemporary interdisciplinary artist and curator, Tasalla Tabasom was born in Tehran, Iran in 2000. Tabasom is a gender queer artist who uses all pronouns. They immigrated to London, England, around 2020 to pursue higher education in the arts and enrolled at Camberwell College of Arts, The University of the Arts London, earning a BFA in Drawing in 2023.

Tabasom's art practice is interdisciplinary, exploring a range of themes, including social activism, societal advantages and disadvantages, personal encounters, identity in relation to race and gender as well as gendered inequalities, and the evolution of queer identities in Iran. Their oeuvre includes a range of different mediums, such as painting, performance art and sculpture. A central preoccupation is questioning the audience’s reception of the human body in art. To do so, Tabasom alters, warps, and conceals the body with the intention of establishing an engaging but emotionally intense environment. Their paintings exhibit and interplay between abstract and figurative elements, characterised by a loose and expressive handling of paint and the deconstruction of the human figure. The thick impasto and swift brushstrokes of the paintings recall Jean Dubuffet’s treatment of paint and canvas, while the fragmentation and distortion of the human body suggests the legacy of expressionism as exemplified by painters such as Francis Bacon or Egon Schiele. The texture of Tabasom's paintings is palpable, with the thickness of the paint contributing to a sense of corporeality.

Tabasom also works with performance, sculpture and video. In 2022, at London's Richmix they performed a piece titled Woman, Life, Freedom. This tribute to the burgeoning movement for women's rights in Iran served as an outlet for communal grief and shared outrage, tackling the subjects of mortality and subversion. The event was designed to offer a space for participants to process their feelings and contemplate the deep-seated effects on those of Iranian heritage abroad. In a gesture of commemoration, the performance included the inscription and recitation of the names of young victims from the Iranian protests, as a means to pay homage to their existence. Tabasom's performance and video Tunnel (2023) explored the complexities of human existence, examining the subtle interplay between the physical self and personal perceptions of time, analysing the intersection of our tangible being with our experience of temporality, especially within mental states and the surpassing of time and physical limits. Otāgh (2023), Tabasom's multi-media sculptural installation for their graduate showcase, represents the area defined spatially and expressively by the Hijab, where personal expression merges with religious observance. This piece is a meditation between the delicate balance of sanctuary and constraint, interweaving fabric with a decorative Paisley motif, thereby acknowledging Persian traditions,
their historical and cultural significance.

Tabasom has held group and solo exhibitions in London and Tehran. In 2023 Tabasom featured in Queer Hedonism held at the Bureau Of Silly Ideas Ltd under the arches in Brixton, in which artists explored the theme of queerness, self-discovery and pleasure through different mediums. Tasalla Tabasom lives and works in London. Their works are not held in any public collections in the UK.

Related books

Malu Halasa, Woman Life Freedom: Voices and Art from the Women’s Protests in Iran (London: Saqi, 2023)

Related organisations

University of Arts, London (student )

Selected exhibitions

Queer Hedonism (group show), Bureau of Silly Ideas Ltd, Brixton, London (2023)
Re-writing Us for the Future (group show), AMP Gallery, London (2023)
Experiments in Defiance: Eavesdropping (group show), Cafe Oto, London (2023)
Archive (group show), Art Hub Creekside, London (2023)
Alter Altar (group show), Southwark Park Galleries, London (2023)
For My Sister For Your Sister For Our Sisters (group show), Lot Projects, London (2023)
Graduate Showcase, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London (2023)
Jorat (Courage) (group show), Espacio Gallery, London (2022)
Woman Life Freedom (group performance), Richmix, London (2022)
Drawing Postal Project (group show), Student Union Gallery, Camberwell College of Arts, London (2021)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Tasalla Tabasom]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Tasalla Tabasom artist