BIO / CV
Nazanin Fakoor is an Iranian-German visual artist and stage director based in Brussels. Working across contemporary visual arts, music theatre, opera, and performance, she creates immersive visual and spatial works in which audiences are invited to physically and sensorially engage.
Her practice combines installation, stage direction, video, light, sound, movement, and music, exploring how perception, collective experience, and imagination can open alternative ways of inhabiting space. Fakoor develops both independent artistic projects and commissioned works in close collaboration with musicians, composers, conductors and performers.
One of her key works, Rainbow, exists as both a music theatre performance and an immersive installation, and has been presented in museums, festivals, theatres, and orchestral contexts across Europe. Her installations Light Drawing and Rainbow are part of the Flemish Community of Belgium Art Collection and have been acquired by M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp.
Her work has been shown in Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Canada, and the United States, including at KANAL–Centre Pompidou, Z33, Kaaitheater, Operadagen Rotterdam, M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, De Singel, Flagey/Brussels Philharmonic, KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and The Watermill Center (New York).
Fakoor studied theatre at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, and graduated in scenography from La Cambre – École nationale supérieure des arts visuels in Brussels.
Her practice combines installation, stage direction, video, light, sound, movement, and music, exploring how perception, collective experience, and imagination can open alternative ways of inhabiting space. Fakoor develops both independent artistic projects and commissioned works in close collaboration with musicians, composers, conductors and performers.
One of her key works, Rainbow, exists as both a music theatre performance and an immersive installation, and has been presented in museums, festivals, theatres, and orchestral contexts across Europe. Her installations Light Drawing and Rainbow are part of the Flemish Community of Belgium Art Collection and have been acquired by M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp.
Her work has been shown in Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Canada, and the United States, including at KANAL–Centre Pompidou, Z33, Kaaitheater, Operadagen Rotterdam, M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, De Singel, Flagey/Brussels Philharmonic, KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and The Watermill Center (New York).
Fakoor studied theatre at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, and graduated in scenography from La Cambre – École nationale supérieure des arts visuels in Brussels.
Selected Projects / Performances
2026
Early Career / Assistant Design
Selected Venues / Presentations
Grants / Selected Residencies
Education
Press & Links
"Freedom for women to define themselves, to trust their own knowledge instead of waiting for others - men - to be good enough to think of that. Witches, as we know them from stories, are the model for this. Though they may be mostly a figment of the imagination, Fakoor evokes them here very convincingly by conjuring with stunningly simple means - light, space, image and sound."
“Fakoor shares a research on the imagery associated with witches. Nature images flow into urban landscapes and poetic in-between zones such as a choreography of lines drawn by women's hands in the sand, or transparent foil that creates a surreal reflection like a kind of mirage in the forest. Atmospheric strings, silence and high, low, old, young, hesitant and confident voices speaking different languages alternate. The voices try to put fears into words, or ideas about witches. Hexeneinmaleins is a tuneful insight into a working process that will later be developed into a new performance.”
“In a special way, Rainbow combines a mystical poem about a mythical bird and the scientific, Newtonian discourse about the splendour of the rainbow into a contemporary reflection on identity. At the same time, Fakoor’s performative installation remains open to various interpretations by her audience. Just as we sit around it in an ellipse, which both disfigures and stabilises our perspective, Rainbow is strongly focused on a reflection on yourself, on your own perspective and view of the world.”
“Mirrored surfaces hang together and rotate around their axes like a giant mobile. They are fragile mirrors. Full of dents and creases. They reflect the image of the artist and scenographer Nazanin Fakoor in strange color waves. Like a rainbow that keeps losing its form. Or like us perhaps: liquid under the armor of our skin.”
“Intimate, dark and yet full of colour, breath, voices, bodies; everything is sound, everything is part of space, everything is choreography. Nazanin Fakoor played with Rainbow not one but several senses in a message full of hope. As it is said in the piece itself, "Everything here is outside of time, outside of measurements, so forget about the beginning, forget about the end.”
“Nazanin Fakoor has created a highly sensory light installation that is enriched with live vocal soundscapes by the SWARA Vocal Ensemble, in a composition by Aftab Darvishi. Their music theatrical installation transports you in the mystical text of the twelfth-century Persian poet Attar and at the same time invites you to come to repentance in the stratification of yourself.”
2026
- KMSKA, Royal Museum of Fine Arts , Rainbow immersive installation, Antwerp, Belgium
- Mois Multi Festival, Interplay performative installation, Quebec, Canada
- De Singel, Rainbow adaptation for Brussels Philharmonic, Antwerp, Belgium
- Flagey, Rainbow adaptation for Brussels Philharmonic, Brussels, Belgium
- De Warande, Stormopkomst Festival, Interplay, work in progress, Turnhout, Belgium
- C-mine, Stormopkomst Festival, Interplay, work in progress, Genk, Belgium
- De Warande, Stormopkomst Festival, Rainbow immersive installation, Turnhout, Belgium
- C-mine, Stormopkomst Festival, Rainbow immersive installation, Genk, Belgium
- Beyond the Black Box Festival, Hexeneinmaleins premiere, Antwerp, Belgium
- AMOK Brugge, Rainbow installation, Bruges, Belgium
- De Delicate Revolutie: Over kunst en identiteit/eenzaamheid, Bruges, Belgium
- BRIXEN WATER LIGHT FESTIVAL, Rainbow immersive installation, Brixen/Bressanone, Italy
- Artist talk - Z33- House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture - Fitting In, Hasselt, Belgium
- Z33 - Fitting In - Collective worldmaking in times of change - Rainbow immersive installation, Hasselt, Belgium
- F.A.S.T. Femmes Arts Siences Technologies - Rainbow installation, Polytech High Tension Lab, Brussels, Belgium
- Z33 - Fitting In - Collective worldmaking in times of change - Rainbow immersive installation, Hasselt, Belgium
- Villa Empain - Boghossian Foundation - Museum Night Fever - Rainbow installation, Brussels, Belgium
- Winternights - Hexeneinmaleins (work in progress), Maastricht, Netherlands
- (Un)Holy Light Festival - Rainbow immersive installation - Leuven, Belgium
- M HKA museum for contemporary art - Performance in My Name is Language by Nicoline van Harskamp, Antwerp, Belgium
- Working Title Festival: A room with a view - Workspacebrussels, online
- Argos center for audiovisual arts - 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080/1000 BRUXELLES*, Brussels, Belgium
- De Brakke Grond - Beyond the Black Box, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- M HKA museum for contemporary art- Art's Birthday, Antwerp, Belgium
- Perte de Signal, KidZlab Festival, Montreal, Canada
- KIKK Festival, Namur, Belgium
- Landscapes 2.0, Rainbow, Kortrijk, Belgium
- C-Takt#3 Festival - C-Mine, Genk, Belgium
- Waking Life Festival, Crato, Portugal
- Kaaistudio's - Working Title Festival, Brussels, Belgium
- Rotterdam Operadagen, Rotterdam, Netherlands
- Kunstencentrum nona - Lunalia XS, Mechelen, Belgium
- De Brakke Grond - Beyond the Black Box, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Halles Saint-Géry - Sint-Gorikshallen, Shelter of Art, Brussels, Belgium
- Kanal - Centre Pompidou, Working Title Festival, Brussels, Belgium
- M HKA museum for contemporary art, Middle Gate II, Saint-Dymphna church, Geel, Belgium
- Workspace Brussels, A Kind of Space, The Fragmented Self, Brussels, Belgium
- Festival Safra’Numériques – arts numériques et nouvelles technologies, Amiens, France
- Artist talk, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Faculté des Arts, Amiens, France
- M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Light Shifts, Art's Birthday, Antwerp, Belgium
- Cutuurcentrum Strombeek, NEVER WALK ALONE #2, Grimbergen, Belgium
- Les Halles, VISIONS, Brussels, Belgium
- Maison de Molenbeek, Dark Matter Games book launch, Brussels, Belgium
- Les Halles Saint-Géry/Sint Gorikshallen, John Doe in the Metacity - Utopia + Dystopia in Architecture, Brussels, Belgium
- Les Halles Saint-Géry/Sint Gorikshallen,Working Title Festival, Brussels, Belgium
- La Bellone - House of Performing Arts, Solo exhibition, La Face B Side, Brussels, Belgium
- Kulturpackt, Orient trifft Okzident, Rathaus, Schweinfurt, Germany
- Les Halles, Foire Attraction, Brussels, Belgium
- Uferstudios, Wild Card - Life Long Burning project, Berlin, Germany
- Nuit Blanche, Brussels, Belgium
- FMA François Martens Architects,, solo exhibition, Drawings, Brussels, Belgium
- 18th annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit, Voluptuous Panic, Long Island, New York, USA
- Robert Wilson's 70th birthday celebration, Flowers-performance, Elmgreen & Dragset, Berlin, Germany
- Sylvester Manor, Shelter Island, Shelter, New York, USA
- Kaitheater, Costume design, Tom & Bess O’Bedlam, directed by Sybille Wilson, Brussels, Belgium, 2010
- Beijing Music Festival, Costume design, Semele (Händel), directed by Zhang Huan, Beijing, China, 2010
- Kleine Akademie, Brussels, Belgium, 2008
- Flagey, 100% Schubert Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 2008
- City Sonics, Festival des arts sonores, Mons, Belgium, 2006
- Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, set design, Death in vacant lot! (Shuji Terayama), Southwing Company, New York City, USA
Early Career / Assistant Design
- Assistant designer, costume assistant, and performer with institutions and artists including: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie / De Munt, Robert Wilson, Zhang Huan, The Watermill Center, Théâtre du Soleil, Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel, ...
- Ongoing collaborations in opera and large-scale stage productions alongside independent artistic practice
Selected Venues / Presentations
- M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp
- KMSKA Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp
- KANAL - Centre Pompidou, Brussels
- Flagey, Brussels
- DE SINGEL, Antwerp
- Watermill Center, Long Island, NY
- Kaaitheater, Brussels
- Operadagen Rotterdam
- KIKK Festival, Namur
- Abbazia di Novacella /Kloster Neustift, Brixen Italy
Grants / Selected Residencies
- 2019, 2024 Production grant - Flemish government
- 2020, 2022 Research grant - Flemish government
- 2016, 2017, 2019 Production grant - Flemish Community Commission of Brussels
- 2019 Artist in Residence - Villa Empain / Boghossian Foundation, Brussels
- 2016 Production grant - Federation Wallonia-Brussels
- 2006, 2011 Artist in Residence – Watermill Center, Long Island, NY
Education
- Master in Scenography, La Cambre – École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels, Brussels, 2003–2008
- BA Theater / Drama Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, 2001–2003
- BA Theatre / Drama, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 1999–2001
Press & Links
"Freedom for women to define themselves, to trust their own knowledge instead of waiting for others - men - to be good enough to think of that. Witches, as we know them from stories, are the model for this. Though they may be mostly a figment of the imagination, Fakoor evokes them here very convincingly by conjuring with stunningly simple means - light, space, image and sound."
“Fakoor shares a research on the imagery associated with witches. Nature images flow into urban landscapes and poetic in-between zones such as a choreography of lines drawn by women's hands in the sand, or transparent foil that creates a surreal reflection like a kind of mirage in the forest. Atmospheric strings, silence and high, low, old, young, hesitant and confident voices speaking different languages alternate. The voices try to put fears into words, or ideas about witches. Hexeneinmaleins is a tuneful insight into a working process that will later be developed into a new performance.”
“In a special way, Rainbow combines a mystical poem about a mythical bird and the scientific, Newtonian discourse about the splendour of the rainbow into a contemporary reflection on identity. At the same time, Fakoor’s performative installation remains open to various interpretations by her audience. Just as we sit around it in an ellipse, which both disfigures and stabilises our perspective, Rainbow is strongly focused on a reflection on yourself, on your own perspective and view of the world.”
“Mirrored surfaces hang together and rotate around their axes like a giant mobile. They are fragile mirrors. Full of dents and creases. They reflect the image of the artist and scenographer Nazanin Fakoor in strange color waves. Like a rainbow that keeps losing its form. Or like us perhaps: liquid under the armor of our skin.”
“Intimate, dark and yet full of colour, breath, voices, bodies; everything is sound, everything is part of space, everything is choreography. Nazanin Fakoor played with Rainbow not one but several senses in a message full of hope. As it is said in the piece itself, "Everything here is outside of time, outside of measurements, so forget about the beginning, forget about the end.”
“Nazanin Fakoor has created a highly sensory light installation that is enriched with live vocal soundscapes by the SWARA Vocal Ensemble, in a composition by Aftab Darvishi. Their music theatrical installation transports you in the mystical text of the twelfth-century Persian poet Attar and at the same time invites you to come to repentance in the stratification of yourself.”
