Elika Hedayat

Elika Hedayat (b. 1979, Tehran, Iran) is a Franco-Iranian artist who lives and works in Paris. After studying Visual Communication at the University of Art in Tehran, she moved to France in 2004 and was admitted to the studio of Annette Messager at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, graduating with the Jury's highest honors in 2008. She later continued her studies at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing.

Working across drawing, painting, video, film, installation, and performance, Hedayat creates immersive narratives in which reality, memory, history, and imagination intertwine. Her practice often draws upon personal testimonies, historical references, and speculative fiction to explore themes of power, ideology, gender, sexuality, collective memory, and social transformation. Populated by hybrid human, animal, and vegetal figures, her works construct dreamlike worlds where utopian aspirations frequently dissolve into dystopian realities.

Hedayat's work has been exhibited internationally in France, Iran, the United States, and South Korea, among other countries. Her solo exhibition Les Dépossédés was presented at the Maison des Arts de Malakoff in 2023. Her works are held in several public and private collections, including the FRAC Picardie, the Fonds d'Art Contemporain – Paris Collections, the CNAP, and the MAC VAL.