Aphra Taghizadeh
I am Aphra Taghizadeh (b. 1999, Isfahan), a multimedia artist and postgraduate student at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM), whose work spans directing, editing, XR development, research, and writing. My projects engage with visual and spatial explorations of human cognition, using mediums such as mixed reality, virtual reality, film, installation, and performance. In September 2023, I founded A Phrasal Image, a platform dedicated to digital media and immersive technologies.
After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering in Tehran, I moved to Germany to study at KHM and explore my interests at the intersection of visual arts and immersive/interactive mediums. Since January 2022, I have been the director and independent producer of Verbranntes Land, a VR installation created in collaboration with international artists and scholars at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The work was showcased at MuseumsQuartier (Vienna).
Most recently, my MR/VR project Speechless Witness of a Wandering Tree (2024) premiered at the 37th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and won the Virtual Reality Award at the 2025 Sheffield DocFest. Other notable works include the technical photogrammetry project Goldener Schwan; From Reality to Virtuality—developed with MetaOrt and FürthWiki to digitize Fürth’s monuments for Wikimedia—and The Room of Thousand Voices (producer), an immersive MR installation blending a physical set with a time-compressed, interactable virtual environment.