about me

Maryam Mazrooei is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and photographer whose work spans over 15 years of frontline journalism, war photography, and conceptual visual art. With academic degrees in Physics and Mass Communication, she began her career as a senior political editor in Iran, reporting on pivotal events in the Middle East with a focus on women’s rights, state violence, and human endurance. Her banned books—Red Lines in Iran, The Common Lover, and The Public Secret—alongside her award-winning essay on censorship, reflect a lifelong commitment to truth-telling, artistic freedom, and resistance.

Her artistic practice merges photography with painting, sculpture, installation, and children’s book illustration. She has exhibited watercolors and mixed-media works internationally and approaches photography with a deeply conceptual and emotionally charged lens.

Since 2012, Maryam has traveled across Afghanistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria, taking photo of the conflict zones. In 2016, she moved to Iraq ahead of the joint operation in Mosul against ISIS. Although a significant portion of her work on ISIS rape victims was lost during the chaos of war, the surviving images have been widely recognized for their raw and powerful portrayal of real-life events.

During the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran (2022), she was arrested as a women’s rights activist for her participation in street protests and her collaboration with The Guardian. Following her release and forced exile, she relocated first to Istanbul and then to Brussels, where she completed an artist residency and exhibited her work at Depo Gallery and the USPD Gallery.

Now based in Vancouver, Canada, Maryam continues to expand her interdisciplinary practice. Her current projects explore the intersection of women’s bodies and nature through photography, sculpture, and sound. She is also developing participatory installations using memory objects, audio diaries, and found materials.

Alongside her artistic work, Maryam has taught photography and illustration to youth in Iran, Germany, and Canada through NGOs, after-school programs, and community-based workshops. She continues to mentor young creatives, contribute to local arts initiatives, and build spaces for collective memory, healing, and resistance through art.
In parallel with her visual work, Maryam remains active in journalism—collaborating with local media in Canada and beyond—driven by her unwavering belief in truth-telling and the power of narrative to confront silence and oppression.