Noushin Ourmazd was born in a small urban province of Iran in the 1950s. Relocation was commonplace for Ourmazd due to her father's career. By her late teens, her fascination with the arts had developed, particularly painting and photography.
Post-revolution, under growing economic and cultural pressure, Noushin left Iran with her immediate family to live in the United Kingdom, where she began an undergraduate degree in art. Here, her passion for photography blossomed, and she began to build her portfolio with a focus on black-and-white imagery.
Noushin's work is a product of her life story, the stories of her people, and the struggle for identity within society. She quests for the unknown and looks for the light within shadows. She is interested in the ways in which becoming part of a society can establish identity, but also shift emphasis away from the individual. She aims to show how the confinement and limitations in Iranian society have caused confusion and loss of identity.
Her memories of Iran; the turmoil she witnessed due to change, struggle, and conflict; and the contrast with her life today in Western society have inspired her to use her art as a platform to exhibit the identity crises that women — specifically Iranian women — routinely experience.
The Khanoom series embodies these identity crises and explores the essence of what choice means in society. Women sacrifice their truth and freedom for financial and emotional security. While not always the case, this sacrifice can often lead to submission to chauvinism and male dominance. She reflects, “In my photography I am interested in finding something invisible and hidden in us — the essence of human ability in adaptation for survival.” Her choice of subject comes from intuition and is fuelled by a vigorous desire to partake in the stories that unfold in society. Some of her subject matter concerns people's daily routines and their intimate environments.
