About
Bio:
Zach Wassef (b.2003) is an image and sound-based artist who is from Dallas, Texas, resides in Brooklyn, and is currently a candidate in their final year for their Bachelor in Fine Art in Photography from Parsons School for Design. Their work focuses on the home and interruptions of the natural world caused by humans. Often, the climate emergency and the effects of technological politics act as a motif in their work. Wassef has been featured in group exhibitions at Drexel University in 2019 and 2020, Dallas Center of Photography in 2020, and three group shows in the Parsons BFA Gallery in 2023 and 2024. They have also curated multiple zines and four group exhibitions for the Parsons BFA Photography Gallery. Their upcoming exhibitions include the 2025 Parsons BFA Photography Thesis show.
Artist Statement:
Zach Wassef is a multimedia artist from Texas primarily based in image and sound media. Their practice is oriented around the home and interruptions of the natural world; how obstruction and isolation interpolate within these themes is central to the investigation. They have developed a web of work threaded by the idea of home as an environment built and destroyed by comfort. When that environment becomes disrupted, They follow the trail of disembodiment. All that is left behind becomes the emotional charge of this trail and the immortalization in our memory and onto the photographic plane. Eventually, through my process, the cause of the disruption is uncovered and archived through the investigation.Nature continues to serve as an indefinite realm of influence on their practice and self. Often as an important place of refuge, it is where they can contextualize and ground themselves. It is apparent that human behavior is causing detrimental effects to the natural world and has continued to restrain its existence. This intersection of humans and nature is intrinsic to my work through the moving image, sound, and still frame. They have previously investigated the relationship between displacement and the home in both the physical and the psychological state. Working within communities that have been directly affected by climate change, what will arise when they are eventually lost to the water and how will the state respond if at all? Through the creation of a long-form archive, they work to explore what an image means as an object of resistance and document the transformation of our communities.
Recently, they have been thinking about flow. The flow of the wind, the water, the river, and the land. How does this flow become interrupted and what does it mean to become erased? They are searching for the invisible, searching for the divine, and what divinity means. The search for the divine. The search for what divinity means. Through the land, through the machine of man, does divinity change in meaning; does the divine become less holy? Through their practice, they have begun to unravel the godlike rule of humans over nature, the land, the water, and the space where voices cannot be heard. Photographing the spaces that the ones above us have determined to be “nature”, they are trying to navigate how human interruption and its erasure of histories and ecologies manifest themselves for personal and capital gain.
Recent Shows:
2019 Drexel University Group Show
2020 TAEA Visual Arts Scholastic Event State Finalist
2020 Dallas Center of Photography Human Portrait Group Show
2020 Drexel University HS Student Group Show
2021 Parsons School of Design Merit Scholarship
2023 Parsons BFA Fall Group Show
2023 PhotoFeast Zine X
2023 Parsons BFA Fall N5 Gallery Curation
2023 Parsons BFA Fall N3 Group Show
2024 Parsons BFA Spring N5 Gallery Curation
2024 Parsons BFA Spring N3 Group Show
2024 Parsons BFA Fall N5 Gallery Curation