Hooria Ahmadi: Painting a Raw Portrait of Her Generation

At only 23, Hooria Ahmadi dabbles in a medley of art forms. Trying her hand at sculpture, collage, painting, and photography, she says her view of the world has felt visual as long as she can remember. Today, her work can’t be classified, but the form that completes her vision most wholly is film—the medium is bent and stretched to bring to life the expressions that Ahmadi has been nurturing since childhood. 

Based in Karaj, the Iranian filmmaker holds a degree in cinema and photography but is largely self-taught, her practice a textured journey to date. At 13, she began making simple films on her phone, learning how to edit with Premiere Pro. As a teenager, with all her assignments incorporating drawing and visual elements, she spent her younger days constantly looking for ways to bring to life the sensory and layered ideas that lived in her mind. 

Ahmadi is best known for her documentary series Tehran Youth Diaries, where she chronicles the multitude of sounds, words, and experiences that embody today’s Iranian youth. It serves as a visual archive, logging personal experiences and memories to create “a deeper, more human-centred record of today’s generation”. These moments are archived for fear that they’ll be overlooked, that the raw version of life experienced by today’s generation – which finds itself surrounded by political noise and always at the cusp of change – won’t have a record.

“What really acts as the catalyst for my creative process are the rage and anger that live inside me,” she admits. A creative imagination in constant conversation with the world around her, Ahmadi channels her rage as the “golden fuel” that keeps her artistic engine moving. Experimenting, she adds, forms the core of her practice. 

Emphasising rawness, she doesn’t create visual media that is easy to interpret—she wants to challenge her audience a little, curving their senses. “I want to make them think by using symbols and techniques in my work, similar to when you have a strange dream,” she explains. “After waking up, you find yourself searching for its meaning, trying to find an answer.”

Dreamlike sequences aside, Ahmadi also dreams of an alternate future for her community. While focused on honing her own skills, she hopes for more cross-cultural collaboration and a growing creative landscape among her peers across the region. “In the future, I’d love to create a space, like a company or studio, to support independent artists and help produce bold, uncensored work,” she shares. “A place where unusual ideas can come to life freely.” On her quest to actualise the whimsical ideas in her head, one thing is certain: Ahmadi’s golden fuel is not running out.