Farhan Sonboldel

Artivist, dramaturg, interdisciplinary artist – Frankfurt am Main, Germany / Tehran, Iran
Participant International Forum 2024

Farhan Sonboldel, born in 1997, holds a bachelor’s degree in Drama drama from the University of Tehran and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in International Media Cultural Work at Hochschule Darmstadt. Additionally, he is collaborating with the Re-Connect Online Performance Festival, an Online Performance Platform and Digital Theatre Academy.

In his projects, e.g. “Intertextual Communication” (a cyberformance performed at the Re-Connect festival), he focuses on alternative theatre, activism and dramaturgy with a political approach to reclaiming the public sphere through performative protests in the streets as well as exploring the relationship between virtual and physical reality through cyberspace. In his most recent works, he has conducted a series of practice-based research into the new political forms of performance, aiming to examine social reality from an aesthetic perspective, thus portraying the “public sphere” as the “stage”.

As an interdisciplinary artist, his explorations into socio-politically engaged performing arts transcend mere subject matter. He delves into alternative expressions such as immersive and documentary theatre, dramaturgy, cyberformance and artivism, all of which are palpable in his creations. Additionally, he has organised a number of seminars, workshops and festivals, such as the 21st Tajrobeh Theatre Festival at the University of Tehran, where he served as an artistic director, and he is a co-founder of the 9: Documentary Theatre Repertoire.