Intimate Residue reflects Zahra Zavareh’s ongoing exploration into the fragmented body, process, and material intimacy. This installation—composed of forged and cast aluminum pieces alongside a video sculpture—examines the body's confrontation with what it expels, such as blood, skin, or organs, evoking a subtle unease.
By investigating the body’s tendency to spill over its own boundaries, both physically and metaphorically, Intimate Residue embodies themes of excess, leakage, and vulnerability. A holographic projection of the artist’s head is suspended within the installation, caught in an endless loop of effort and strain. The ephemeral quality of the projection contrasts with the solid aluminum forms, creating a dynamic interplay between visibility and disappearance, solidity and dissolution.
The installation foregrounds the labor of creation, with process itself becoming part of the narrative. Traces of making—leaks, cracks, and remnants—introduce unpredictability and highlight the material's responsiveness to touch, weight, and heat. Here, the body is not merely a subject but a continuous process of reconstruction, leakage, and resistance, never fully containing itself.
Through these gestures, an intimate portrait emerges: a body fragmented and fragile, yet resilient.
*Photo of On the Verge Of Unseen due exhibition with Eliska Kovacikova in M3 Mengerzeile, Berlin