Ramin Haerizadeh (b. 1975, Tehran), Rokni Haerizadeh (b. 1978, Teheran) and Hesam Rahmanian (b.1980, Knoxville, USA) live and work together in Dubai as their individual and collective practices contract, expand, and merge in symbiosis. This multi-layered and ever-evolving practice is an additive method, one that involves extensive research, ongoing dialogue, and trial and error. Resulting in complex, multimedia, and immersive installations, the artists place emphasis on the importance of ‘reporting on our time’ and bringing attention to the ‘urgencies’ of the present moment.

The trio’s series of paintings on paper depict newspaper spreads of reworked, re-stitched, and regurgitated news reportage, spectacle, and mediated broadcast content intertwined with zoomorphic beings and surrealist interventions in which the three artists viscerally debate a topic (or multiple for that matter) between themselves within what they aptly term as a ‘Fields of Negotiation’ where subjectivity and objectivity are in constant flux. Based on their morning routine of reading the newspaper during breakfast and while they debate some of the topics in the news, they take photos of the pages on their table juxtaposed with the fruits, cups, teapots, etc. By detaching news imagery from its original context, this body of work estranges and opens up its encoded meanings while interrogating the entertainment value of reportage and the voyeuristic role of the spectator as a passive consumer of mass-media spectacle. The artists’ ultimate aim is to break down the “othering” effect of virtual bystanding and promote recognition of our social interdependency and the value of solidarity.