Sana Ghobbeh
Sana Ghobbeh is an Iranian-born artist and artistic researcher based in Brussels. Her work examines the life and the impact of specific sites of infrastructure, often situated in Iran. In her transdisciplinary approach, Sana integrates insights from her studies in architecture and research methods developed as a visual artist into a performative storytelling practice.
Sana studied Architecture in Tehran and received a master’s degree in Fine Arts in Sweden. She worked as a research assistant at Umeå university of Architecture, before moving to Brussels in 2016.
Her works focus on our interaction with particular architectural elements and how a performer can engage with disrupted urban spaces and transform them into an evolving context of engagement. Aided by concrete spatial installations on stage, that transform as each web of stories unfolds, Ghobbeh evokes the passing of major social events, small subversive gestures, and the traces these left in the urban fabric. Can new narratives rise up by tracing these moments of disruption, interruption, and poetry?
In this long-term research, Performing Spaces — an exploration on urban structures and their inner narratives —, Sana interweaves layers of archival documentation, individual memories, anecdotal interviews, minute details, historical facts, and personal imagination. Through this multifaceted approach, she aims to provide not only an informative, mapped understanding of a place but also a tangible sense of the often-overlooked politics and poetics that inhabit these spaces.
As part of this investigation, Sana Ghobbeh created the performances “This wall grows at its roots” and “The ferris wheel turns when the wind blows”. She then got grant support for the Sugar CUBES project, a research into the history of sugar production, shapes, and the industrial ties between the sugar industries of Belgium and Iran. This led to the creation of the performance “These roots never blossomed” premiering at Beursschouwburg in spring 2025.