Abbas Zahedi
Zahedi has had a studio at Kindred for the last three years. Drawing on diverse disciplines, his works are united by his interests in healing and creating community.
"My ambitions were to become either a surgeon or a psychiatrist. After completing my academic training and most of my clinical placements, I decided to leave medicine in 2011 following the loss of my brother. I started organising grassroots community projects, including a food bank and a cultural space for marginalised and migrant communities. I saw this kind of work as an extension of my interest in holistic wellbeing and spaces that support life and living. It helped me to find an emotional release as well as a sense of connection with others—something that had often eluded me growing up.
If a work of art could be truly transformative, what would it look like? According to Abbas Zahedi, the winner of last year’s Frieze Artist Award, it might not have a physical form at all. Zahedi’s radical practice blends the transcendental qualities of sound, space and people coming together, encompassing funeral rituals, collaborations with neurologists and sculptural instruments that turn breath into liquid into sound. Trained as a doctor, Zahedi fell into art almost by accident, participating in the Diaspora Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Since then, he has graduated from Central Saint Martins, had a solo exhibition at the South London Gallery and shown at London Open 2022 at the Whitechapel Gallery. Next year he will have a solo exhibition at Tate.
See Abbas’ short for Tate Kids, filmed at Kindred.