Sahar Sajadieh is a media artist, performance artivist (artist/activist), and scholar. She was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Her background is in experimental theatre/performance art, and media and performance studies. She graduated with a dual degree in Theatre (BA) and Computer Science (BSc) from The University of British Columbia and received her Master’s Degree in Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Sahar is currently a PhD candidate in the Media Arts and Technology (MAT) program at University of California Santa Barbara with an emphasis on Digital Performance.

For Sahar, art practice is a means to explore and open a dialogue about the unspoken socio-political issues and challenges in contemporary human culture. She is interested in examining new effective possibilities of interaction in performance space, in addition to the major alteration of human interactions with his/her environment in daily activities, using emergent technologies such as telecommunication tools and mixed reality technologies. Sahar’s main research methodology in her doctoral project is art practice as research. In her multimedia performance and installation art pieces, Sahar creates a self-reflective distance to analyze the relation of body to body, when a digital mediator stands in between the two. She is trying to use her pieces as case studies to explore the possibilities of creating a sense of liveness on stage, when a virtual performer is replacing the live actor in a live performance.