Sanaz Mazinani | Department of Arts, Culture and Media

Biography

Sanaz Mazinani is an artist, educator, and curator based in Tsi Tkarón:to /Toronto, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, including Mississaugas of the Credit, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples. Working across the disciplines of photography, sculpture, and large-scale multimedia installations, Mazinani creates informational objects that invite a rethinking of how we see, suspending the viewer between observation and knowledge. Informed by the visual rhetoric and confounding presence of contemporary media circulation, her multidisciplinary practice aims to politicize the proliferation and distribution of images, invite critical reflection, and forefront social justice and environmental movements.

Mazinani is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art in the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media (UTSC) with a graduate appointment at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. She holds an undergraduate degree from Ontario College of Art & Design and an MFA from Stanford University. Her work has appeared in solo exhibitions at institutions including the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the West Vancouver Museum, and Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California. Her projects have been featured in venues throughout Canada as well as China, France, Germany, Guatemala, India, Iran, Switzerland, the UAE, UK, and USA. Mazinani’s work has been written about in Artforum, artnet News, Border Crossings, Canadian Art, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, among others. She has received grants from the Canada Council, Zellerbach Family Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, and her work is held in public collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the City and County of San Francisco.

Education

2011 - M.F.A., Art Practice, Stanford University, California, USA

2003 - AOCAD, Photography, Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, Canada

Teaching Interests

Mass Media and Image Culture; Fieldwork and Participatory Methodologies; Environmental Conservation and “Zero Waste” Practices; Art in Public Spaces; Ethics in the Digital Space.

Research Interests

Investigative Aesthetics; Ethics of the Photographic Image; Perceiving, Observing and Visioning the Self; Land-Based Knowledge.

Awards & Grants

2022 - Canada Council for the Arts, Concept to Realization Grant

2022 - Public Art research grant, Edmonton Arts Council, CA

2022 - Tri-Agency Bridge Funding, University of Toronto (Research and Innovation), CA

2021 - Public Art Grant, Infinite Reflections at 1028 Market Street, San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), USA

2020 - Public Art Grant, Rolling Reflection at 49 South Van Ness, SFAC, USA

2020 - Public Art Grant, All that Melts: notes from the future-past (temporary installation) for Vancouver Art Gallery, CA

Publications

Mazinani, S. Signal to Noise. SF Camerawork Publications, 2018. 68 pages. ISBN 9780998801926.
https://www.bulgergallery.com/publications/42-sanaz-mazinani-signal-to-noise-27.00-hst-shipping/

Mazinani, S. & Mazinani, Mani. Shift. Aerophone Recordings, 2019. Vinyl LP.
https://www.aerophonerecordings.com/editions/p/aer002

Exhibitions

Installation view of "All That Melts", reflective architectural vernacular with mirror-polished stainless steel planters, glossy reflecting pool where pearly-blue icebergs float in their own meltwater