From an early age, Hoda Afshar was fascinated by theater—a space where reality can be reimagined and connected to the power of imagination. This sensibility continues to inform her artistic practice, which navigates the intersections of representation, truth, and performativity. Her focus is not on theatrical effects, but on a radical visual language that critically challenges dominant ideologies and opens new perspectives on the familiar.
Hoda Afshar’s work addresses systems of power, the erasure of marginalized voices, and the political dimensions of visual story telling. In a time maked by selective historicization and the erosion of liberal façades, she uses photography as an ethical and affective tool—one that resists relativism and insists on accountability. Her images give space to those affected by state violence and dominant ideologies: whistleblowers, refugees, Iranian women. In close collaboration with them, she creates performative Tableaus that become sites of agency and self-determination.
Moving deliberately between visibility and refusal, Hoda Afshar challenges stereotypical representations and uses the documentary image not to reproduce trauma, but as an aesthetic strategy to reveal dignity—especially for those who have long been denied the right to beauty.