Elahe Massumi

Elahe Massumi is a producer and artist who has long looked unflinchingly at subjects the world has not wanted to face. Her concern has been social justice; her intention: using her work to heal the world's wounds. She explores difficult, even horrifying, subject matter, employing the beauty of color and complexity of imagery to draw the viewer into her depictions of harsh realities. Born in Esfahan, Iran, she devoted herself to art from childhood. She spent countless hours immersing herself in the study of art, including architecture, painting, sculpture, and her other passion, the cinema, often skipping school to go to the movies. Her privileged background did not insulate her from suffering. The death of her beloved father when she was 13 and the subsequent death by torture of one of her cousins seared her heart and opened her eyes. She says, "As a consequence, I decided to become a very strong person who could survive and face up to anything. During my adolescence I became very sensitive and responsible regarding social injustice. I decided that, as soon as I developed my own artistic language and style, I would devote myself to expressing what I was feeling about injustice and the human condition. " She was a rebellious girl, prone to getting into trouble, and she and her family decided it would be best to get her out of Iran. She found her way to the United States where she continued her studies, ultimately acquiring a Master of Fine Arts degree in Media at Pratt Institute. From there, a trip to Venezuela and the Amazon jungle had a tremendous influence on her artistic vision. The Italian master of cinema, Pier Paolo Passolini, whom she was fortunate enough to meet, also inspired her. "From that moment on I started to experiment with moving images, and decided to merge my experience and passion for art, cinema, anthropology, poetry and philosophy, aiming to create a language of my own." Another crucial influence was the social worker, Dr. Minoo Moadel, who took the young Elahe under her wing, teaching her to trust her intuition as well as to be analytical in her approach to the world, and to merge her personal life with her artistic life. In subsequent years Massumi hurled herself into creating video art and short films, traveling from one dangerous environment to another, even risking her life to produce works that were not documentaries, but representations of the world's harrowing situations. She worked with the men, women and children whose lives she portrayed, gaining sufficient trust so they would cooperate with her filming. To accomplish this she has had to be willing to bear not only the physical risk, but the emotional pain of being a witness.