Shahbazi explores the way in which different traditions legitimate themselves by seducing us into recognizing notions that are supposedly central to definitions of culture. But who is the We in this case? Where do we locate contemporary art practice when it is articulated outside traditional ideas of identity and cultural belonging? In other words, what are the implications of producing art, when one does not belong to a certain tradition? Shahbazi’s installations are concerned with the possibilities of cultural transmission, a theme that also explains her interesting use of flatness as well as the staging of the elements in the space.

Chus Martinez for Whenever It Starts It Is The Right Time – Strategies For A Discontinuous Future, published by Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2007