Gisou Golshani
Gisou Golshani is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist based in London working with experimental sound, performance, installation and video. Her practice explores rituals of belonging and resistance through vocalising and embodied movement, creating intimate environments that tune into the land and the more-than-human. Drawing on Iranian folk mythology, grief practices and worldbuilding, she develops ritual based works that archive the emotional and political conditions of our lives.
Her sonic palette merges distorted textures, meditative drones, field recordings and voice to summon a rise against erasure. Through storytelling, Farsi chants, and sampling archival materials, she reflects on climate grief, migration, memory and collective healing. She approaches sound as a social tool—an invitation to slow down, listen deeply and imagine more just futures.
in embers (2026)
In ‘in embers’ (2026), Gisou Golshani dwells in the strange persistence of grief, how life and time carry on while loss remains lodged within the body. Moving through shifting sonic textures, voice, and lamentation, the work traces grief not as a linear passage towards resolution, but as something cyclical that returns in waves, much like the repetitions of folk songs. At the heart of the piece is the lament for a tree burning from within, bringing human and more-than-human grief into intimate relation. If nature reminds us that life persists through cycles of death and renewal, ‘In embers’ asks us to remain with what cannot be restored. An ember carries the trace of what has burned, but also a lingering heat, something that remains.
This sound piece was commissioned as part of عزیزم، دنیا گلستون میشه یک روز / ‘My dear, one day the world will bloom into a garden’, conceived by Yalda Bidshahri for the ROSVÂ Summer 2026 Guest Curator Residency.