Oil:Height of Depth

Mohammad Hassanzadeh

The discovery of oil in the southwestern parts of Iran resulted in an oil-based geography that led to the creation of artificial spaces. These artificial spaces in turn led to the development of small urban settings that had a significant effect on their context and environment, challenging many of the existing conditions of the local people of these oil-based geographies.
The main idea behind this project is rooted in these confrontations and transformations in Iran’s southwest: historic/geographic configurations that have remained within human and natural environments that forcefully resisted change, and where traces of this resistance appear in different areas like unhealed wounds. This art project reveals what could be considered the intersection of art, science, and technological advancements.

Mohammad Hassanzadeh was born in 1979 in Gachsaran in southwestern Iran.  He studied at the College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran. He lives and works in Tehran and southern Iran. His material as a visual and experimental artist encompasses a wide range of materials—from natural elements to scientific data. In his works, he draws on photography, drawing and printing mediums to help him shape and organize his ideas.
His artistic projects are a combination of history, politics and nature, inspired by natural science approaches such as observation, empiricism, and experimentation—which eventually came to fruition with the discovery and creation of aesthetics derived from them.

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