Ali Tahayori

Ali Tahayori’s interdisciplinary practice ranges from conceptual photography to the moving image, and installation. Tahayori uses archival materials, narrative fragments and performative modalities to explore themes of identity, home, and belonging. Combining fractured mirrors with text and imagery, his works draw on ancient Iranian philosophies about light and mirrors to create kaleidoscopic experiences; moments of both revelation and concealment hint at the conflicted nature of his identity. Translating the traditional Iranian craft of Āine-Kāri (mirror-works) into a contemporary visual vocabulary, his practice combines a discourse about diaspora and displacement with an exploration of queerness – in both cases, poignantly testifying to his experience of being othered.

Born in Shiraz, Iran, Tahayori currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia (Gadigal country). Raised in the oppressively homophobic climate of 1980s Iran, Tahayori assumed the identity of an outsider, further compounded by his migration to Australia in 2007. He holds a Doctorate in Medicine and MFA in Photomedia from National Art School.

Since graduating Tahayori has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include ‘Five Acts of Love’, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) Melbourne 2025; ‘Queer Contemporary: Chaosophy’, National Art School, Sydney 2025; ‘To look each other in the eye,’ Ideas Platform, Artspace, Sydney 2024; ‘Kill Me Softly’, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne 2024; After Everything Has Been Said’, Linden New Art Project Space, Melbourne 2024;‘i will meet you there’, First Draft, Sydney NSW 2024; ‘From Fire’: Casula Powerhouse, Sydney 2023; ‘ ‘The Sky Is The Same’, Gosford Regional Gallery, NSW 2023; ‘Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia’, National Art School Sydney 2023, and ‘Vantage Point 10’, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE 2022. He was Artist in Residence, Parramatta Artist Studios, Sydney 2024 and will exhibit at Westspace, Melbourne in late 2025.

Tahayori has exhibited at international art fairs including MIA Photo Fair, Milan, Italy 2024, Unseen Amsterdam 2023, Photo London 2023 as well as Melbourne Art Fair, 2024 and Spring 1883, 2025.

He is the 2025 recipient of NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), Artspace and Create NSW; was awarded Winner Burwood Art Prize, 2024 and Prix Yves Hernot Photography Award, National Art School Sydney 2022; and was awarded Highly Commended Honourable Mention, Bowness Photography Prize 2021. Tahayori has been a finalist in numerous awards including Olive Cotton Award; Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize; William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize; Nikon Emerging Photographer Award, Photo London; National Photography Prize, MAMA Albury; PhMuseum Photography Grant, Bologna, Italy; National Photographic Portrait Prize; National Portrait Gallery; Fishers Ghost Art Award; and Waverley Art Prize, Sydney.