Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Natascha Sadr Haghighian is an artist who often works under multiple identities. Public bios about them can conflict on where they come from, when they were born, and where they live. Their art mainly examines how politics, business, and industry shape everyday life, and they create solo and collaborative works in installation, performance, text, and sound.
One of their notable projects is Pssst Leopard 2A7+, an ongoing study of the German Leopard 2A7+ battle tank designed for urban use to control protests. Shown widely since 2013, the project features an audio sculpture covered with blue, green, and grey Lego plates as a satirical take on the tank.
In 2010, with writer, researcher, and curator Ashkan Sepahvand, Haghighian founded the Institute for Incongruous Translation to encourage disagreement and negotiation in translation.
They reject traditional CVs and bios and insist that only biographies from the Bioswop project be used in materials about their work, arguing that a single, cohesive narrative is not aligned with their political and artistic goals.
A verifiable fact is that their two-channel video Empire of the Senseless Part II (2006) is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Haghighian represented Germany at the 2019 Venice Biennale. For public aspects of the installation, they adopted the persona Natascha Süder Happelmann and wore a mask during the press conference; their representative, Helene Duldung, spoke on their behalf.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 03:52 (CET).