Parham Ghalamdar
Painting, ceramics, AI moving image, installation, live image systems
ghalamdar.art@gmail.com
Instagram: @parham.ghalamdar
www.ghalamdar.com/
Bio
Parham Ghalamdar is an artist based in North England, working across painting, ceramics, AI moving image, installation, and writing. His practice asks how images behave under the pressures of exile, war, climate collapse, technological distortion and political violence. Recent projects include Aerotheology (2026) at Leeds Arts University and The Sight Is a Wound (2025), an experimental short film that has had more than 50 international screenings and received numerous honours, including the Honorary Award for Efforts in Social Filmmaking at the Activists Without Borders Film Festival in Reading, UK. Ghalamdar is a 2026/27 Artistic Research Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and a recipient of an Arts Council England Project Grant (2026/27) and the Factory International Fellowship (2026/27) in Manchester, UK. His work is held in public collections including the Government Art Collection, University of Salford Art Collection and Leeds Arts University.
Selected education
2023-2025 Certificate in Critical Philosophy, The New Centre for Research & Practice
Postgraduate-level certificate of competency; non-degree programme
2019–2021 First-class MA Painting, Manchester School of Art
2016-2019 First-class BA Fine Art, Manchester School of Art
2012-2015 First-class BA Engineering Print and Media, Tehran School of Art
Selected art collections
Private: SOHO House Manchester
Public: Leeds Arts University; Government Art Collection; University of Salford Art Collection; Touchstones Rochdale; Grundy Gallery
Selected governance / advisory roles
2025 to present Trustee, ROAR, Rotherham, UK.
Supporting the governance of a Rotherham-based non-profit arts organisation dedicated to creative practice, artist development, community arts, and cultural activity in the region.
Selected public commissions, awards, and fellowships
2026-2027 Co created mural commission, Manchester Oxford Road Station, HOME and Network Rail, Manchester, UK. Commissioned lead artist with Nicola Ellis as support artist, developing an approximately 100 m² mural through community engagement with people living, working, studying and travelling around Oxford Road, for installation on the station platform in 2027.
2026 to 2027 Selected artist, New Contemporaries 26/27, UK. Selected for New Contemporaries’ Artist Development Programme and forthcoming group exhibition.
2026 to 2027 Recipient of Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant, UK.
2026 to 2027 Recipient of the Factory International Fellowship, Manchester, UK.
2026 to 2027 Artistic Research Fellow, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, USA.
2026 to 2027 SUBTEXT commission, Stockroom, Stockport, UK. Participatory wall and screen-based public commission for the National Year of Reading.
2024 to 2025 APP Creative Commissions Programme 2024/25 by Leeds Arts University.
2023 Recipient of Arts Council England DYCP grant, UK.
Selected solo exhibitions
2026 Subtext: Subtitles for a Film That Does Not Yet Exist, Stockroom, Stockport, UK.
2026 Aerotheology, Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University.
2024 Deep Desert Objekt, Pipeline Gallery, London, UK.
2023 Painting: An Unending, HOME, Manchester, UK.
2021 FIG. 1, Caustic Coastal, Manchester, UK.
2020 Parham Ghalamdar, Workplace Foundation, Gateshead, UK.
Selected duo exhibitions
2026 Rotanomicon, duo show with artist Abolfazl Harouni in Kandovan Gallery space at Pejman Foundation, Tehran, Iran. Publication authored by Reza Negarestani.
2023 Poetics Of Water duo show with Jessica El Mal, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK.
2022 Half Awake duo show with Joseph O’Rourke, Bankley Gallery and Studios, Manchester, UK.
Selected group exhibitions
2026 To The Wonder, Hypha Gallery Southbank, London, UK
2026 In/Human Infrastructures, Alt_R, London, UK.
2025 Good Eye Projects 2026, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK.
2025 Materials and Processes for an Expanding World, Plot Space, LA, USA. (Curated by Soft Systems)
2025 Sophie Mak-Schram and collaborators: To Shift a Stone, two-part exhibition at Chapter Arts Centre and National Museum Cardiff, Cardiff, UK.
2025 Between a Frame and a Soft Place, Millennium Film Workshop, New York City, USA.
2024 Hybrid Futures, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford, UK.
2023 Centre of the Periphery, Pipeline Contemporary Gallery, London, UK.
Selected Film
2025 The Sight Is a Wound, experimental short film, 6 min 48 sec, dir. Parham Ghalamdar, cinematography by Dean Brierley. 50+ festival screenings and exhibitions worldwide across the UK, Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia.
Selected film awards of The Sight is a Wound
2025 Best Short Documentary, Gjon Mili International Video Art Festival, Manhattan, USA
2025 Jury Award, Pebbles Underground Film and Video Art Festival, Toronto, Canada
2025 Honorary Award for Efforts in Social Filmmaking, Activists Without Borders Film Festival, Reading, UK
Selected film festival screenings of The Sight is a Wound
Braziers International Film Festival (UK); CosmiX IV International Experimental Cinema Festival (FR); Sluice Film Festival (Iceland premiere); Bristol Radical Film Festival (UK); Darkroom Festival (UK); MicroActs Artist Film Screenings (UK); International Moving Film Festival (MX); International Political Film Festival of Vienna – Carlota (AT), among others.
2025 Burial Without Body, AI-generated experimental short film, 12 min 10 sec, dir. Parham Ghalamdar. World premiere: 12Gates & PAAFF’s Contemporary Video Art Exhibition, Philadelphia, USA, 2025.
2025 Angels Don’t Die in Multiplayer, AI-generated video essay, 3 min 46 sec, dir. Parham Ghalamdar. Selected screenings: Living Gallery, Brooklyn, USA; Adrift, Mexico City, Mexico; Side Quest for the Real, Geneva, Switzerland; ŠUM Journal launch, Vienna, Austria; Radical Futurism: WaveForms, Boston, USA; Navigating Unreality Mode, Ljubljana and online.
Selected lectures/talks
2026 From AI War Propaganda to the Pink Rifle Parade, In/Human Infrastructures: Counter Protocols symposium, curated by Xeno Futurism magazine, Gossamer Fog / Alt_R, London, UK.
2026 KAHRIZAK, 720×480: The Morgue as Platform Under Blackout, Midlands Conference In Critical Thought 2026, University of Warwick.
2026 Deep Objects, Item Literature, and the Refusal to Image, Machinic Language symposium, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London
2025 Necro-Geographies of the Sublime: A Posthuman Reckoning with Turner’s Horizon, Turner 250 Conference, Tate Britain, London. Organised by the Paul Mellon Centre.
2025 Speculative Broadcast: Decolonising Archaeologies of Technology? (with Dr Sophie Mak-Schram), ECRN & DRN Summer Symposium: British Art and Architecture in the Digital Age, University of Bristol. Organised by the Paul Mellon Centre.
Selected publications
2027 (forthcoming) Dialogues on InternetCinema, co-writer/co-editor, Becoming Press, Berlin, Germany.
2027 (forthcoming) Persophobia, Posthuman Press, Melbourne, Australia.
2027 (forthcoming) Unknown Unknown: Speculative Archaeology of Fired Clay, collection and documentation of interviews, essays, and portfolio of ceramics, preface by Dr Marianna Tsionki, interlude by Dr Jason B. Mohaghegh, outro by Reza Negarestani, Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK.
2027 (forthcoming) Recursive Swarm: Every Timeline is Ashura, Every Grid is Karbala, comic book with preface by Colonel Dr. Seyed Zeinolabedin Salimi Ashgouri, glossary by Reza Negarestani, soundtracks by Saint Abdullah, published by Erratum Press, Sheffield, UK.
2025 SIAHKAL 2.0: AI Resurrected Discourse on Marxism and Islam ( Theory-Fiction, co-authored with Parsa Esmaeilzadeh and “Bizhan Jazani”), Becoming Press.
2025 ARTIST STUDIO AS A SITE OF REFUSAL, artist book published as part of the Good Eye Projects residency, London, UK. Collected and held at Becoming Press.
2024 Persophobia, theory fiction book published as part of the national Hybrid Futures public program partially funded by ACE, edited by Dr. Shezad Dawood, features an intro by Reza Negarestani, Layout designed by Amrit Randhawa AKA Taxi Cab Industries.
2024 Deep Desert Objekt solo exhibition catalogue featuring writings by Dr Derek Horton, Nicola Ellis, and Raheel Khan, Designed by Amrit Randhawa AKA Taxi Cab Industries, published by Pipeline Contemporary Gallery, funded by UKNA 4C Group Bursary 2023-2024, London, UK.
Selected essays/articles
2026 Under Blackout, the Dead Are Catalogued, reportage essay, Shadowbanned Magazine #4.
2026 The Ark Problem: Climate Collapse and Radical Curation, essay, REPHRASE Magazine.
2025 Hyperstitional Deterrence: When Victory Is Manufactured in Scroll-Space, co-authored with Parsa Esmaeilzadeh, ŠUM #24: Unreality Mode I.
2025 Saffron, Silence, and the Coming Ruin: A Review of Omid Asadi’s Unfinished Sentences, review essay, Becoming Press.
2024 Resisting Authority and Absurdity: The Enduring Relevance of Iranian-American Painter Nicky Nodjoumi, Ajam Media Collective.