The Blue Dome
Selina Ershadi
Selina Ershadi, work in progress, film still, 2026.
This exhibition presents new work by Iranian-born, Tāmaki Makaurau–based artist Selina Ershadi. Working with film, sound, and text developed during recent trips to Tehran and in Tāmaki Makaurau, she explores the politics of recording personal stories. These artworks, made with women in her family, challenge standard expectations of voice, vision, and home. By working with details often overlooked in official historical narratives, Ershadi questions whose stories are seen, remembered, and valued.
This exhibition is presented in association with Nottingham Contemporary and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.
Join us for the opening on Friday 24 April from 6–8pm, all welcome.
Biography
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Selina Ershadi is an Iranian-born, Aotearoa based artist who works across filmmaking and writing, drawing upon personal and familial histories and archives. Ershadi’s work complicates straight-forward autobiography and troubles the camera’s relationship to lived reality, making visible the risks and failures that haunt any act of documenting. Her film Amator (2019), co-made with her mother Azita Chegini, is the first Farsi language artwork in the Te Papa Tongawera collection. Ershadi's work has been exhibited widely including Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, The Physics Room, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, and the 2025 BFI London Film Festival.
Events
Low-sensory hours
Open late
Curator's tour at Aotearoa Art Fair
So you Think you Know About Art? Quiz at Aotearoa Art Fair
In Focus: The image that moves me with Selina Ershadi and Nova Paul
Kaitohu Director’s exhibition tour
Deep dive: Lecture by Mahdis Azarmandi
Pinhole camera workshop
Film screening of fugue notes
Evacuation Tapes, a reading by Ruth Buchanan
2026 programme
Each year Artspace Aotearoa asks one question. Across the year, this question is explored by artworks, artists, and audiences. In 2026, we ask, “which history?” You can think of our annual exhibition programme as a connected inquiry, in four parts and with many possible answers. Join us.
Gordon Bennett
Emily Karaka
Selina Ershadi