Shabnam Afrand is an interdisciplinary visual artist and educator born and raised in Tehran. Shabnam’s body of work reflects her life and creates an ambience of longing and memory by choosing the objects and forms in her practices. As a member of the Iranian Diaspora, she draws on identity and social discourse as important conceptual anchors in her practice. During the past two decades, she has explored themes related to power, the intersection of personal and collective memory, relocation, and fragility through various bodies of work.
She obtained her Master of Fine Arts degree from Azad University in 2001, with honours, for a thesis examining the interpretation of women in Art history. She taught in the faculty of Fine Arts of Azad University from 2003 to 2010 and has been a member of the Iranian Painters Society since 2003. Shabnam moved to Canada in 2013 and participates in and collaborates with various art events and residencies. In 2017 and 2018, Shabnam received the Toronto Arts Foundation’s RBC Access Fund and was awarded the RBC Space Award(Akin)2019. She was the grant recipient of the Toronto Arts Council Newcomer Artist Mentorship Program in 2020-2021. Currently based in Peterborough, she is studying the Museum Management and Curatorship program at Fleming College.