Perpetual Discharge of the Heart, 2014
Hoda Zarbaf (b. 1982, Tehran – d. 2020, Tehran, Iran) was a sculptor and a multimedia artist. She obtained her BA in Painting (2005) and her MA in Animation (2010) both from the University of Tehran. She held an MA in Fine Arts from the University of Windsor (Canada, 2010). Her last show with Dastan, Honey, I Am Home" (+2, Tehran, 2020), convened nine days before she passed away quietly in her home. Works of Hoda Zarbaf are playful and biting social commentaries. In her short career she produced over 50 multimedia sculptures, compositions and installations, made from found material: used socks, youtube videos, worn T-shirts, home movies, restock monitors, dated audio, human hair, orphan dolls, and abandoned furniture. Many of her work hint at the humdrum of domestic life, the effervescence of birth, and sedentary nature of aging. In Untitled (2020) two hands bereft of a body are holding a cellular phone as they are balanced on a chair which appears on a rug. "Endorphins Eruption" (2015) a female body is sitting sideways with her head gushed out from her neck. "Facing the World – Facing Away from the World" 2016) shows a cooking pot on which "Facing the World" ("Ru be Jahan") is written in Persian as a green fluff oozes out of it. "The uncanny and absurd characters of her pieces reference the basic human emotions that are derived from lack: fear, vulnerability, desire, pain, and melancholy", explains a text on her website. Works of Hoda Zarbaf are contemplative by nature. On her website, maintained posthumously by a curatorial team "committed to continue, celebrate, and advocate for her timeless work/influence", an animation called "I'm Home" endlessly type and erases a set of statements starting with "I'm...", showing the artist's intense bewilderment with questions regarding her existential place.