Nina Rastgar was born and raised in the northern region of Iran, in Gilan. The people of Gilan form one of the main ethnic groups in northern Iran, historically working as farmers and artisans.
Nina Rastgar earned their bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering in Gilan, where they developed a lasting connection between hand and mind, an approach they continue to carry into their art practice. They were also members of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Organization of Gilan for years, holding positions in gardening and farming to create wearable handicrafts in wood and Metal. Nina later earned their Master of Fine Arts as a Presidential Fellow at USC for leadership roles in the US, further expanding their interdisciplinary approach to media, material, and cultural critique.
Nina views objects in space as dynamic mediums of lived experience that encapsulate the memory and the self, prompting critical thinking, reviving process, and care rather than nostalgia.
Rastgar experienced firsthand how culture was manipulated by binary ideology and relational norms to impose what is true and Legitimate forms.
Currently based in Toronto, Rastgar’s doctoral research explores the intersection of eco-social craft, materiality, gender, and socially engaged art. Drawing on disability queer studies, Rastgar approaches creative practice as a site of refusal and collective inquiry, where participation, pedagogical experiences, engagement, and embodied experience become ways of questioning and dismantling normative assumptions about the body, productivity, and visibility.
Nina Rastgar (b.1988, Gilan, Iran, works and lives everywhere.)
Interdisciplinary & Conceptual Artist.
They/Them
