rouzbeh.shadpey@gmail.com
IG: @rouzbei
soundcloud.com/pesargol
Rouzbeh Shadpey is an artist, writer, and musician with a doctorate in medicine and indefatigable fatigue. His work explores the aesthetics and poetics of weariness, alongside anticolonial modes of the clinic. Through sound, video, performance and essays, he attempts to bring the critical to bear on the clinical.
Rouzbeh has exhibited and performed at TULCA (Ireland), documenta fifteen (Germany), The Mosaic Rooms (UK), Dazibao (Montréal), MUTEK (Montréal), and more. His writing appears in artistic and academic journals, including Parapraxis, Decolonial Hacker, Weird Economies, Syllabus Project, and Momus. His musical practice, under the name GOLPESAR / گلپسر , combines avant-garde electronics, guitar, spoken word, and Iranian sonics.
He currently lives in the Netherlands, where he is a member of the 2025 cohort of Jan van Eyck Academie.
EDUCATION
2021 Electroacoustic Music Bachelor of Fine Arts / Concordia University / Montreal, CA
2016 Psychiatry Resident Postgraduate Medical Studies / McGill University / Montreal, CA
2015 Doctorate in Medicine / Université de Sherbrooke / Sherbrooke, CA
EXHIBITIONS
Forgetting Is the Sun at Dazibao (Montreal)
curated by France Choinière / February 2024
honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise at TULCA Festival of Visual Arts (Galway)
curated by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais / November 2023
Sonic Fields of Reflection at Artexte (Montreal)
curated by Mojeanne Behzadi / October 2022
by these straits to die at Centre Clark (Montreal)
curated by Roxanne Arsenault, March 2022
SCREENINGS
Cubitt (London)
curated by Seán Elder, part of extended program for Kirsty Russell's Practicing Bodies / July 2024
Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin)
curated by Sara Muthi / August 2024
PERFORMANCES
Bimarestan (Continent of the Sick)
Dazibao (Montreal) / February 2024
Undiagnosing documenta at documenta fifteen (Kassel)
Part of Privation in Three Acts hosted by Decolonial Hacker, in dialogue with LE18 / August 2022
M2A(2M…) or a cosmotechnics of (e)viscerality at the Mosaic Rooms (London)
Part of public program for Hayv Kahraman's Gut Feelings / April 2022
all the organs of my atoms need rest at Rencontre interuniversitaire de performance actuelle (Montreal)
June 2021
LECTURES / PANELS
Properties of Voice Symposium
Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis (New Jersey) / March 2024
Forgetting Is the Sun - Artist Talk
TULCA Festival of Visual Arts (Galway) / November 2023
Learning from fatigue
Discussion with Jonathan Sterne for Radio Insomnia
Curated by Anabelle Lacroix and Nicolas Montgermont / July 2023
L'art guérit-il?
Panel with Mirna Abiad-Boyadjian & Vivek Venkatesh, moderated by Benoit Jodoin
by Esse arts + opinions / Foire Plural (Montreal) / April 2023
Politics of Music & Art: Experimentalism & Sonic Activism
Panel with Shaahin Peymani, Farahnaz Hatam, Behrooz Moosavi
by Goethe-Institut in Exile / Acud Macht Neu (Berlin) / January 2023
The Pathological Earwitness
Lecture as part of Videogram series
Faculty of Fine Arts Brno, in collaboration with Terén and Masaryk University / December 2022
by these straits to die - Artist Talk
Centre Clark (Montreal) / April 2022
Poetics to Activate the Technology 1 + 2
Moderation and Discussion with Be Heintzman Hope
Ada x / March 2022
Expanded Dialogues on Self Uncertainties Part 3
Panel / Centre for Expanded Poetics (Montreal) / June 2021
Decolonization Series
Panel / curated by Gabriel Dharmoo / Canadian New Music Network (Montreal) / April 2021
PUBLICATIONS
At the Mercy of Limitless Loss: Physiological Aneconomies of Chronic Fatigue
Weird Economies / January 2024
How Will We Know the Siren When It Sounds?
Urvakan Reader / July 2023 (forthcoming)
A Heart Under Attack: Pitfalls of the Weathering Hypothesis
Parapraxis Issue 02 / August
A Clinic the Size of the World
Momus / June 2023
The Injunction to Forget: documenta fifteen and the Test of Memory
C Magazine / April 2023
Our Phantom Illnesses
Runway Journal / February 2023
On Scripting Fatigue
Celine Bureau x Revue Cigale / February 2023
Pain Scale: Carolyn Lazard and the Immeasurability of Black Pain
Esse arts + opinions / September 2022
A Tale of Two Pills
Decolonial Hacker / July 2022
Toward the Shore of Listening: An Underscore
Infrasonica / July 2022
On Be Heintzmann Hope and Baco Lepage-Acosta’s ‘Poetics to Activate the Technology of the Body 1 + 2’
Ada X / March 2022
SOUND PERFORMANCES
Sled Island
Selected by SET Festival
Palomino (Calgary) / 2024
Opening for Dis Fig
La Sotterenea (Montreal) / 2023
Comédie première featuring GOLPESAR, Corporation and Katelyn Clark
Presented by Tropisme
Église Saint-Édouard (Montreal) / 2023
Thomas Ankersmith, Jessica Ekomane, GOLPESAR
Presented by Debaser x Artengine, in collaboration with AKOUSMA
Club Saw (Ottawa) / 2022
Séances d’écoute vol.2
Curated by Les Sympathiques
Café Resonance (Montreal) / 2021
Akousma
Usine C (Montreal) / 2021
Festival Phenomena présente Marie Davidson et l’Oeil Nu
Opening for Marie Davidson et l'Oeil Nu
La Tulipe (Montreal) / 2021
A Body Without, and in Need (with Sam Bourgault)
Mutek Montreal
5e Salle Place des Arts (Montreal) / 2021
Suoni Per Il Popolo
Église Saint-Jean-de-Vianney (Montreal) / 2021
An Exercise in Empathy
Part of Code d'Accès' Portail 20-21
White Wall Studio (Montreal) / 2021
RESIDENCIES
2025 Jan Van Eyck Academie
06.2023 Berliner Festspiele X Ashkal Alwan, School for Dissident Friendships
09.2022 Celine Bureau X Revue Cigale, Writers Residency
05.2022 DAÏMÔN, Artist in residence
04.2022 Eastern Bloc X Art Volt Residency
2021-22 Montreal Arts Interculturels, Programme Alliance