About

Hossein Tavazoni-Zadeh is a performance maker, researcher, and educator based in Groningen, with active artistic and research ties to Tehran. His work brings together Cultural Memory Studies, film, and performance to explore how images and stories shape memories of the past and of place, as well as questions of archives, heritage, remembering, and forgetting.

Hossein's portfolio includes award-winning stage productions, site-based projects, and online performances. Among these are three consecutive awards in the Experimental Theatre section of the International Fadjr Theatre Festival:  Best Play for The Butterfly (2017) and Aras (2019), and Best Performance for Narges (2018). Alongside directing and artistic research, he has taught and led workshops at universities and theatre institutions in Iran, the Netherlands, and France, and has collaborated as a writer, dramaturge, and stage designer on a range of theatre and film productions.

Drawing on his series of site-based performances in Tehran during the 2010s, Hossein completed his PhD at the University of Groningen, where his research examined how media and fiction shape the cultural memory of architecture and everyday spaces, and how these spaces become invested with emotional meaning. He holds a Master's degree in Film Studies from Sooreh University in Iran, where his thesis explored how Iranian site-based theatre draws on filmic language to shape the experience of architectural space.

Hossein regularly presents his work at international conferences, public talks, and community engagement events. His work has been shared across Europe and the MENA region, bringing together artistic practice and scholarly research to examine cultural memory, media, architecture, and performance.