Aliakbar Sayah is Iranian Artistic Director, Photographer, Curator and Founder of Silence Art Gallery
Sayah began his artistic career at the age of ten by making stop-motion films at the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, and later received his diploma in animation from the Academy of Fine Arts. His most recent work has been in independent documentary and animation filmmaking, with his latest film, “The Poet’s Wasteland,” an autobiographical documentary about self-destruction, screened in Berlin and then Amsterdam in 2023.
While teaching photography and animation at the Academy of Fine Arts, Sayah also began his career as a curator, and in 2024 he founded his own gallery called Silence, focused on experimental and interdisciplinary arts.
Sayah’s photography career began in 2018 with the creation of a staged photography series with stop-motion puppets, and he later turned to documentary photography.
Aliakbarsayah Exhibition
– Solo Digital Art Samran Nameh – 2017
– Group Photography and Painting Like Rusty Scales – Khorshid Gallery – 2018
– Group Photography and Painting Behind the Sneezes of the Moon – Sheth Gallery – 2018
– Group Works of Teachers and Students of Isfahan Fine Arts Conservatories – City Center Gallery – 2019
– Solo Video Installation Lost Climate – Ghasedak Cultural Center – 2020
– Group Poetry of One Solitude – Cinematography – Ghasedak Cultural Center – 2021
– Solo Video Installation Lost Climate – Part Two – Hajj Agha Hodi Ecotourism Residence – 2023
– Group Guardians of Geokern –Silence Gallery – 2024
Aliakbarsayah Curation
– Signs of Destruction – Photos by Fine Arts Photography Students – 2022
– Online Solo Photography – Beyond Seeing – Photos by Mohammad Mohammadi – 2022
– Painting event -Blured Memories- 2024
– Painting event – Blue Carnation – 2025
– Group Photography – Absence – Fine Arts Conservatory students – 2025
– Group exhibition of painting and photography – Eternal Memory – 2025
– Solo Photography – Shadow- A Representation – Self Portraits by Neda Aghasi 2025
– Solo Photography – Open Wound – Photoghraphy by Aida Masoumi 2025
Aliakbarsayah Films
Khatoon / short animation/2017
Carpet of Shadi / editing & Tittle/ 2017
Art of Adib / In Praise Of The Works of Farzad Adibi/ 2017
Radical /short Documentary/2019
Where is wind house? /short film /2020
Like a Moment / Documentary about Khosro Sinaei, a iranian filmmaker / 2020
A like sun /Documentary/2021
Cradle of Death/short film /2021
Resident Of The House of Silence/short film /2022
Fish and Tree of Life /Documentary film /2023
The Poet’s Waste Land /Documentary film /2024
Aliakbarsayah’s exhibitions are a display of interdisciplinary works between cinema and visual arts such as painting and cinema. In all of them, loneliness and fantasy are two inseparable elements that become motifs and become the main motif. Aliakbarsayah, In her frames, the tourist is always making references, different references to old films and paintings and even references to herself. He use objects as symbols to represent the innermost being of a person and an inner journey. A journey from the outside to the inside, which is symbolized by objects such as dolls and glass vases.
Aliakbarsayah, These frames tell a story, but each of the words of the poem are put together and form the poetic. Painting and lighting are also facilities that Sayah use to get closer to their main sources, cinema and painting, and to add to their poetry. In fact, Aliakbarsayah see the cinema camera as a canvas and paints in the medium of film and experiences the cinema in her collection of photographs.
AliAkbar Sayah started photography in 2016 and has participated in several group photography exhibitions in galleries such as Sheith and Khurshid. In addition to teaching photography and lighting photography courses, as a curator, Aliakbarsayah was also organized several exhibitions of the works of students of photography classes. Previously, due to her experience in cinematography and interdisciplinary communication between painting and cinema, He directed several photography projects and wrote a treatise entitled “Eternity of Beauty” about the principles and knowledge of cinema and photography lighting. The most activity of Aliakbarsayah in photography has been in social documentary techniques, portraiture and ethnography, and “All My Loves” is considered her first collective experience in fine art photography.
Sayah Foundation is an independent art and design foundation that, in addition to visual identity design, design and filmmaking, carries out projects aimed at literacy, creative and critical thinking of teenagers through the creation of works of art. One of the projects of this foundation is seeing beyond seeing, which started with two workshops on design thinking and personal filmmaking in 2022. All people related to the Aliakbarsayah are art students and graduates who create works independently and freely. The focus of this foundation is on designing posters, visual identity of institutions, as well as training and making short films and documentaries.
Aliakbar Sayah started making stop motion Puppets at the age of 10 at the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents, as a self-taught, and after that he continued his work at the Center for Creating Centers, under the supervision of the famous director of puppet animation in Iran, Abdullah Alimarad. Along with holding various stop-motion Puppets making workshops, Sayah also teaches this technique at the Academy of Fine Arts. Also, for the first time, puppet animations are used in the form of conceptual art.
In Aliakbarsayah’s opinion, Puppeys are only the characters of a domestic and foreign film and are independently recognized as works of art. In this way, for each puppets, ideation and presentation of visual arts works can be considered. In 2020, a conceptual art exhibition of animation dolls called «Lost Climate» will be held at Ghasedak Culture Center.