MA (Master of Arts) - Chelsea College of Art & Design - University of the Arts London, U.K., 2013
The Interior and Spatial Design program at the Chelsea College of Art and Design is a research-based MA degree, committed to the critical investigation of space through the theoretical and practical research interests and activities of the students. As a graduate student at UAL (2013), Bahar had the opportunity to learn directly from practicing artists, including her primary supervisor and mentor Dr. Ken Wilder who taught her the curatorial communication and logistics of art exhibitions in museums and art galleries; she learnt how to create, install, and showcase her mixed-media installations to the public. She was also trained in the areas of copyright, asset, and collection management. Bahar’s research was a reflection of her personal past-experiences as a survivor of the war between Iran and Iraq, which lasted for 8 years. It involved the study of spatial and emotional effects of negative images (as in photography) and was an attempt to determine whether negative images used in an aesthetic context, could present sensory-emotional values that retell the stories of horror, fear and trauma. Through extensive archival research, filed surveys (city of London) and secondary resources, her thesis was presented in two chapters, accompanied by a collection of art installations that took a deeper look at the concept of imagery and iconography within the historical context of her research (World War II).
