Badri Valian | Interdisciplinary Artist, Painter, and Social Practice Artist

Badri Valian is an Iranian-American interdisciplinary artist and painter whose practice explores the intersections of war, ideology, forced displacement, gender, identity, and collective memory. Based in San Francisco, her work brings together painting, textile art, participatory performance, installation, and social practice to examine how political power and systems of control shape individual lives, bodies, and identities.

Informed by personal and intergenerational experiences of war, displacement, and political oppression, Badri creates image-based narratives and participatory encounters that connect personal stories with broader social and political histories. Through painting, textiles, embroidery, family photographs, and community-engaged art projects, she challenges dominant narratives and asks how identity is constructed, distorted, and remembered under conditions of violence and control. Her practice creates space for people to share lived experiences, reflect on collective memory, and encounter stories of displacement with care and responsibility.

Badri has exhibited her work at notable arts institutions and cultural venues, including Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, Italy, the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF), the New Museum Los Gatos (NUMU), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), the Shibori Museum in Kyoto, Japan, and the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico. Her work has also been presented at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.

Through her interdisciplinary practice, Valian continues to investigate how art can connect personal memory with public history and create meaningful encounters around displacement, gender, political power, and the human consequences of conflict.