Rouzbeh Akhbari (b. 1992, Tehran) is an artist, filmmaker and human geographer based between Toronto and Lisbon. His moving-image practice sits at the intersection of documentary storytelling, fieldwork and poetic speculation. Working across film and installation, his projects investigate the political and ecological entanglements of trade and infrastructures across various geographies, tracing how the forces of empire continue to be inscribed in material landscapes.
Akhbari’s solo and collaborative works have been presented internationally at major film festivals and institutions, including Sao Paulo International Film Festival, Tirana International Film Festival (Winner, Best Video Art & Experimental, 2024), Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (Winner, Prix George for Best International Documentary, 2020), Media City Film Festival, London Short Film Festival and DocsLisboa among many others. His films and installations have also been exhibited widely at museums and public institutions including Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai), M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (Toronto), MAC VAL (Paris), Villa Arson (Nice) and Si Shang Art Museum (Bejing).
He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, most recently the Calouste Gulbenkian Production award (2025) and Alserkal Foundation Research Fellowship (2025–27). Akhbari holds an MFA in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and is currently a PhD candidate in Human Geography at the same institution.
Akhbari is one-half of Pejvak, the critically acclaimed artist duo with Felix Kalmenson.
Exhibit
Of Wool and Diesel
Relying on archival research, Rouzbeh Akhbari’s Of Wool and Diesel (2026) considers border landscapes and their entanglements with seafaring histories. Rouzbeh’s video installation examines trade-linked histories along the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a thirteen-member multi-modal (train, highway, maritime) trade corridor that strives to connect Eastern Europe and West Asia to the Indian Ocean via […]
September 26 – December 20
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Program
Mercer Union Opening
Join us for the opening reception of artist Rouzbeh Akhbari’s new exhibition, Of Wool and Diesel, featuring a new film installation co-commissioned by Toronto Biennial of Art and Mercer Union. The artist will be in attendance. Presented by Mercer Union.
October 2, 2026
7:00pm – 10:00pm
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