At Tate Modern in London, Abbas Zahedi creates quiet, immersive environments where sound, objects, technology, spirituality, and social engagement come together as forms of care, reflection, and connection.
Inside Tate Modern, the work of Abbas Zahedi offers a striking counterpoint to the museum’s monumental industrial architecture.
This stop is part of Tarik Talk’s 30 Days, 4 Cities: European Art Tour, moving through London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Brussels while exploring how different artists shape space, time, and experience.
Zahedi’s practice moves across installation, sound, and social engagement, often focusing on care, healing, spirituality, communication, and collective experience.
Rather than creating work that demands immediate attention, he builds environments that ask viewers to slow down and become more present.
Creating Space for Reflection
One of the most distinctive qualities of Zahedi’s work is the way it creates space emotionally as well as physically.
Materials such as water, ceramics, radios, and speakers can appear within carefully arranged installations that feel almost ceremonial.
There is often a quietness to these environments.
Nothing feels overly theatrical.
Instead, meaning develops gradually through relationships between objects, sound, people, and atmosphere.
Sound as a Form of Attention
Sound plays a central role in Zahedi’s practice.
Rather than overwhelming the gallery, it can remain subtle and ambient.
You have to listen.
That act of listening changes the experience.
You become more attentive to the room, to the people around you, and to small shifts in sound that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The artwork begins to operate through awareness rather than spectacle.
Technology and Spirituality
Zahedi’s use of technology often feels unexpectedly intimate.
Radios, speakers, and other communication devices become more than functional objects.
They act as conduits.
They receive and transmit.
They create invisible networks across the gallery.
A radio can suggest connection to something beyond the immediate space—a voice elsewhere, a signal traveling through the air, or a presence that can be heard but not seen.
This gives technology a contemplative dimension.
What Does It Mean to Tune In?
The idea of tuning in becomes both literal and metaphorical.
A radio tunes into a frequency.
A viewer tunes into the space.
Listening becomes a way of connecting.
This opens broader questions about communication and presence.
How do we listen to one another?
What happens when attention becomes an active choice?
Can technology create intimacy rather than distance?
Zahedi’s work allows these questions to remain open.
Art as Care
Care is one of the strongest ideas running through his practice.
Instead of thinking of art only as an object to be viewed, Zahedi creates situations that can function as places of pause, gathering, reflection, and shared attention.
The work often feels less concerned with ownership or display than with experience.
Art becomes something that happens between people.
It can create room for listening.
It can encourage rest.
It can establish a temporary form of community.
Intimacy Inside Tate Modern
This approach becomes especially meaningful inside Tate Modern.
The museum’s vast scale can feel monumental.
The former power station carries enormous physical presence.
Zahedi’s installations create an intimate counterpoint to that architecture.
Instead of trying to compete with the building, the work slows the environment down.
You may pause.
You may sit.
You may notice sound moving through the space.
The experience becomes more personal.
A Shared Experience
Even when the gallery remains quiet, Zahedi’s work can feel collective.
Visitors occupy the same environment.
Everyone hears the same sound differently.
Each person brings their own memories and associations into the space.
The work therefore exists not only through the objects installed in the gallery but also through the relationships that develop around them.
That social dimension is central to Zahedi’s practice.
Beyond the Art Object
Zahedi is not simply making individual sculptures or sound works.
He is constructing environments.
Objects become part of larger systems of attention, communication, and presence.
This expands the idea of what an artwork can do.
Rather than offering a single image or message, it can create conditions.
A condition for listening.
A condition for reflection.
A condition for connection.
Abbas Zahedi at Tate Modern
At Tate Modern, Zahedi’s work becomes an invitation to experience art differently.
There is no pressure to understand everything immediately.
The work rewards time.
Its quieter qualities become increasingly noticeable the longer you remain.
Sound shifts.
Objects relate to one another.
Other visitors become part of the environment.
At Tate Modern, Abbas Zahedi’s practice transforms installation and sound into forms of care—creating deeply human spaces where listening, presence, technology, and collective experience come together.
Part of the 30 Days, 4 Cities European Art Tour
This episode is part of Tarik Talk’s 30 Days, 4 Cities: European Art Tour, exploring museums, galleries, artists, and cultural institutions across London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Brussels.
The series looks beyond individual artworks to explore how architecture, exhibitions, cities, and artistic communities influence the way contemporary art is experienced.
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Tarik Talk explores museums, galleries, exhibitions, artists, and cultural institutions around the world through on-location episodes and visual documentary storytelling.
The London series brings audiences inside major museums, galleries, exhibitions, and cultural spaces while exploring the artists and ideas shaping one of the world’s most influential creative capitals.
About Tarik Talk
Tarik Talk is an international podcast and visual documentary series created and hosted by Brazilian artist Tarik Mendes, exploring contemporary art, culture, and creativity through conversations and on-location experiences around the world.
With more than 200 episodes across 30+ seasons, recorded live in more than 10 countries and reaching audiences in 160+ countries, Tarik Talk brings audiences inside museums, galleries, artist studios, art fairs, cultural institutions, and creative spaces.
Through interviews, exhibition visits, artist profiles, museum tours, and special documentary series, Tarik Talk connects artists, places, ideas, and creative communities across the international art world.
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