Ashkan Shabani

QUEER, LIFE, FREEDOM is a multi-layered exhibition that explores queer identity, displacement, and resistance through a personal and political lens. Drawing on the artist’s lived experience as a queer refugee from Iran, the work reflects on the fragmented journey from repression to survival, weaving together photography, text, video, and installation into an immersive narrative space. The project chronicles the emotional and physical impact of forced migration – from Iran to Turkey to Germany – while also resisting a linear structure. It focuses on the emotional memory of exile: the silence, the waiting, the erasure, the desire, and the resilience. The work invites viewers to engage with the fragility of identity under pressure, and the quiet acts of defiance that define queer existence across borders.