--- title: Artist Spotlight: Sepehr Badiei description: Hairdresser image: https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/Add%20a%20subheading%20(2).jpg --- [![](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png?width=400&height=76&name=Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/) [![](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png?width=400&height=76&name=Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/) - [Home](https://overdrivemagazine.com) - [About](https://overdrivemagazine.com/about) - [Contact Us](https://overdrivemagazine.com/contact-us) - [Archive](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3) Search - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ## [![](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png?width=400&height=76&name=Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/) [Follow us on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com) [Follow us on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com) [Follow us on Twitter](https://www.twitter.com) [Follow us on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com) [✕](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/artist-spotlight-sepehr-badiei#atbs-offcanvas-primary) - [Home](https://overdrivemagazine.com) - [About](https://overdrivemagazine.com/about) - [Contact Us](https://overdrivemagazine.com/contact-us) - [Archive](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3) # Artist Spotlight: Sepehr Badiei By [Sepehr Badiei](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/sepehr-badiei) 16 Aug 2026 [Sepehr Badiei](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/sepehr-badiei) 16 Aug 2026 - - - Sep is a queer artist and hairdresser based in East London, born in Iran to an Iranian father and Egyptian mother. Half his family escaped during the revolution when he was five, moving through Pakistan before being resettled in New Zealand via the UN. Displacement survival and movement shape how he sees people, beauty and time. They work with hair as a main medium — making objects, building pieces, holding memory in material form and words. This project is a love for research, to gather histories, and write poetry that runs alongside the work.  ------- I started writing about grief when my mum passed away. It was a very difficult journey. And when my dad passed I wasn’t with him we had left Iran, and he stayed behind. Then we went to New Zealand as refugees. It was a hard lonely journey. Sometimes people stay in their land because they belong to it. My mum was from Egypt. My dad was from Iran. And me I’ve always felt Queer, free-spirited, moving from a young age. From Pakistan to New Zealand, then Sydney, now the UK… always searching for something that feels like home. Writing became my quiet kind of therapy, especially when I was seeing a grief therapist . It gave me a place for everything that didn’t have a home. I wanted people to feel it grief, love, joy, pain. All of it. Because it feels like people don’t really go there anymore don’t let themselves sit inside those emotions. I wanted to give something back… the humanity our loved ones leave with us when they’re gone. Especially now with everything happening in the world, it feels like human life isn’t always valued. But we are so strong. We are so deeply loved even when it doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes I feel alone in seeing it this way. Still, I try to share love anyway. I realise as I get older that not everyone moves through the world with the same depth… the same soul. But life—life and even what comes after it—means everything when you are truly living. Feeling it. The pain, the joy, all of it. And we shouldn’t give up . Not for our parents. Not for our grandparents. Not for the future of our children. ![IMG_0119](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0119.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0119.jpg) ![IMG_0124](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0124.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0124.jpg) ![IMG_0135](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0135.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0135.jpg) ![IMG_0142](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0142.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0142.jpg)   Albizia julibrissin (gul-i Abrisham) // Nature of Time - A Mother’s Love *Time does not measure a mother* *It bends around her* *There is no one like your mum* *No mirror like her gaze* *No shelter like the space she holds* *Even when distance pretends to exist .* *I left when I was young* *Not away from you* *But through you* *Through the courage you planted* *So I could stand without leaning* *Independence is a branch* *But LOVE is the root .* *Being far carried a quiet ache* *a gravity in the chest.* *Yet you came to me in sleep* *soft but unmistakable.* *I felt what you carried.* *I still do.* *I felt your pain.* *I still feel it.* *If pain were transferable* *I would take it* *without hesitation in every form it arrived.* *you made me.* *My strength* *My gentleness.* *Nothing takes that.* *Now you’re with dad* *Lighter* *Beyond weight reincarnated* *I circle you* *like a butterfly that never lands .* *Here everything is one.* *Here I am still your child.*    Grief in Sequins and Mud *Rocking.* *Crying like a baby* *in a body that is supposed to be grown.* *Without you two* *I am an orphan.* *Even with years in my bones.* *Even with my own name on the door.* *Gold trembling in the dark* *your shoulders lit* *like gold leaf .* *Pink threads hanging from branches* *like nerves the sky forgot to hide.* *I miss the back up.* *( I miss you )* *The wall behind my spine.* *The certainty that nothing could end me* *while you were still here.* *Praying at your feet* *On arrival.* *Mud does not shame you.* *Water holds your reflection* *like it understands* *reincarnation is never clean.* *Your voice txt healed me.* *Just the way you said my name.* *Now the wind says it differently.* *Now the dark carries it further.* *Birds become pure being* *chanting your name into the sky* *I am an orphan in this lifetime.* *But you two* *are sequins in the soil* *light pressed into earth,* *already stepping* *into another beginning.* *And I am still here,* *rocking,* *aching,* *waiting for the lifetime* *where I find you again* *and the mud does not mean goodbye.*   Metallic green fragments *metallic green* *appears again* *not asking permission* *—* *māmān joon bābā Jān* *the word breaks* *differently now* *—* *tree holding ethereal light* *like a secret* *water keeping two skies* *—* *metallic green* *not leaf* *not paint* *something closer* *to mercy* *—* *I look for an ending* *the forest refuses* *—* *roots moving* *in the dark* *carrying news* *from somewhere unseen* *—* *Mādar ( Mother )* *no longer in body* *more like a free traveler* *more like breath* *passing through branches* *jāye shomā sabz* *your place is green ( wish you were here )* *—* *metallic green* *the colour that remains* *after everything else* *steps aside* *—* *Paradise exists* *somewhere behind the visible* *I feel it* *in the bark* *in the water* *in the silence* *—* *nothing answers* *yet nothing is gone* *—* *metallic green* *still speaking*     Echoes of Sky *Three years , five* *Where did you go ?* *Time tiptoes past unnoticed* *or* *am I blindly distracted* *chasing shadows of a smile* *that once lit my Sepehr* *Sometimes I feel* *Like a stone* *guilt curling around my chest* *Sometimes I cry for nothing.* *Sometimes I cry for everything.* *and I whisper بیا—come.* *And yet…* *All I do is keep walking* *broken* *remembering,* *and missing you more than air.* *“ I hope the love I gave* *unheld* *unanswered still finds somewhere to live . “*     **Process of the making** ### *The hair pieces in this series function as sculptural extensions of the body. Constructed through a slow process of braiding, wrapping and knotting strands of hair around natural materials such as wood branches the works explore the tension between fragility and structure.* ### *Some strands reach lengths of up to eight metres, allowing the material to move freely in the wind and form organic shapes .* ### *Knotting becomes both method and metaphor. A knot binds separate strands into a single form while holding tension within it. Symbolically knots have long represented connection, attachment, and the intertwining of lives. Within this work each knot becomes a quiet gesture of memory a small act of holding together what grief threatens to unravel.* ### *The repetitive act of tying and wrapping transforms the making process into something almost meditative. Time, patience, and touch become embedded within the work itself, allowing the pieces to carry both physical labour and emotional weight.*   **Credits** Artist : Sepehr Badiei @badieisepehr Photographer : Charlie Tallott @charlie\_tallott   Models : Sven Ironside @sven.ironside DAFNI KRAZOUDI @dafnikrazoudi   Clothing : Maximilian Raynor @maximilianraynor , SEBASTIEN KWOK @sebastienkwok , Shannen Maria samuel @shannenmariasamuel   Boots : Natacha Marro @natachamarro Make up : Kevin Cordo @kevin.cordo Retouched : Elizabeth Derby and @helen\_bykova\_retoucher @studioandrews   Special thanks to @aportugueseloveaffair @medbriordan @shannenmariasamuel , Elizabeth Derby & Dave Andrews   ![](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0142.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0142.jpg) ![IMG_0120](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0120.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0120.jpg) ![IMG_0146](https://47622789.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hub/47622789/hubfs/IMG_0146.jpg?width=1200&length=1200&name=IMG_0146.jpg) 0 [Sepehr Badiei](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/sepehr-badiei) [![The Cost of Community](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/Untitled%20design%204.jpeg)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/the-cost-of-community) [next](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/the-cost-of-community) ### [The Cost of Community](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/the-cost-of-community) #### Related news ### [Sober curious: an exploration of sobriety, socialising and reclaiming your sunday.](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/sober-curious-an-exploration-of-sobriety-socialising-and-reclaiming-your-sunday) [![image](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/@marketplace/ATBS/Edia/images/grayscale-mountain.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/laura-evans) [Laura Evans](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/laura-evans) May 27 2025 ### [Artist Spotlight: Stellar Moves](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/artist-spotlight-stellar-moves) [![image](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/@marketplace/ATBS/Edia/images/grayscale-mountain.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/jess-morton) [Jess Morton](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/jess-morton) September 9 2025 ### [Artist Spotlight: Sarah O'Mara](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/artist-spotlight-sarah-omara) [![image](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/@marketplace/ATBS/Edia/images/grayscale-mountain.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/jess-morton) [Jess Morton](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/jess-morton) April 28 2025 [![](https://overdrivemagazine.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png?width=400&height=76&name=Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png)](https://overdrivemagazine.com/) - [Home](https://overdrivemagazine.com) - [About](https://overdrivemagazine.com/about) - [Contact Us](https://overdrivemagazine.com/contact-us) - [Archive](https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3) [Follow us on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com) [Follow us on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com) [Follow us on Twitter](https://www.twitter.com) [Follow us on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Sepehr Badiei", "url" : "https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/author/sepehr-badiei" }, "dateModified" : "2026-08-16T05:50:36.424Z", "datePublished" : "2026-08-16T05:47:22.000Z", "headline" : "Artist Spotlight: Sepehr Badiei", "image" : [ "https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/Add%20a%20subheading%20(2).jpg" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://overdrivemagazine.com/blog-3/artist-spotlight-sepehr-badiei", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://overdrivemagazine.com/hubfs/Screen%20Shot%202024-10-12%20at%2010.56.26%20pm.png" } } } ```