Mavanie is a Sydney based artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Melbourne. Informed by their Mesopotamian-Iranian heritage and the lived experience of growing up queer, brown, and non-binary in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s, their work explores cultural erasure, gender, identity, displacement, and belonging through a convergence of contemporary Western zeitgeist and Middle Eastern iconography.

Mavanie’s evocative sculptures and immersive installations explore cycles of decay and regeneration, foregrounding the interconnectedness of people, place, and the natural world.

Through a ritualistic process combining the preservation of organic, recycled, and site-specific materials with elemental forces such as fire and water, their work becomes a conduit between past and present. Through this process, it becomes evident that, despite historical erasure, ancestral knowledge endures, continually shaping both our identities and collective memory.

‘I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.’