Roxanne Varzi was born in Iran to an American mother and an Iranian father. Her family migrated to the United States after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. She moved back to Iran in 1991 to continue her education at the American University in Cairo in Cairo, Egypt. She completed her PhD in 2002 at Columbia University for anthropology. Due to her Iranian roots, many of her works focus on post-Revolution Iran public culture. She expresses her art through many forms of media, including, but not limited to, films, books, and sound performances. She was the first recipient of the Fulbright award to Iran since the Revolution. Even though many of her works are focused on Iranian culture, she has expanded her work to tackle universal issues concerning war.
Career
Roxanne Varzi is currently a full professor of anthropology and film and media studies at University of California, Irvine. While at the University of California, Irvine, she has completed many works. Her first book, Warring Souls: Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran focuses heavily on how propaganda and media take a role in shaping the identities of those living in post-Revolution Iran. The author says this that her book focuses on "the intersection of religion, vision, and power, and whether the individual ultimately has the power to turn an image off". Her second work, Plastic Flowers Never Die which is an experimental documentary on the effects of the war in Iran, and the aftermath of the war. In this documentary, she speaks to mural painters, museum curators, and veterans to get a thorough breakdown of war and how the post-war period has been affected by the war. Plastic Flowers Never Die was selected for 14 film festivals. The Whole World Blind was her first sound performance. It is said to be experienced while the audience is "blindfolded and wearing headphones". The audience listens to a "narrative loop of a curator describing a slide show of war photography". Her second book, Last Scene Underground: An Ethnographic Novel of Iran is a fictional story set in Iran's Green Movement about young Iranians learning life lessons "through politics, art, and the meaning of home". Last Scene Underground was a gold medalist in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Her most recent work, Salton Sublime, is another sound performance focusing on what sublime means in the current state of environmental degradation our world is facing.
Works
Warring Souls: Youth, Media, and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran
