Zahra Hooshyar is a first-generation, Iranian American interdisciplinary artist born in West Virginia. Her practice is deeply rooted in exploring false memories, and collective loss while investigating her nuanced background as a third culture individual. Exploring the poetics of materials to create installation pieces and intimate smaller works that require participation to be activated, Hooshyar aims to build worlds and experiences that ebb and flow with current events informed by ancestral knowledge. Her work often explores generational trauma, cyclical narratives pertaining identity and circumstances, and investigation into diasporic existence. Allowing for materials to decay, dissolve, transform, and reinvent themselves, she is interested in the poetry that inherently writes itself in the materials and processes she utilizes. Graduating from the University of California-Davis in 2022 with a dual BA with honors in studio art and persian studies. Hooshyar has had works exhibited at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Verge Center for the Arts, Light Art Space, The Basement Gallery and the Dream Clinic Project. Hooshyar has been published in the Mulberry Literary Journal,  Bravura Post as well as Open Ceilings. Hooshyar has been featured on Rhonda Willer’s podcast, “The Artist in Me is Dead”. She was also a guest speaker at NCECA 2022 : Fertile Ground for a storytelling segment.   

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