Shaghayegh Cyrous: Through the Sun

Reisig and Taylor Contemporary is presenting Through the Sun, a multimedia video installation by Shaghayegh Cyrous that traces a passage through memory, myth, pressure, and transformation. Shaped by political, social, religious, and geopolitical forces, the work draws on ancestral memory, Iranian mythology, surviving texts, and oral traditions to move toward light, truth, harmony, and survival.

Rooted in Iranian mythology, Zoroastrian cosmology, and Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Through the Sun reflects on passage as an ancient and necessary act. Siavash enters the fire to reveal the truth. Rostam crosses the seven trials of the Haft Khan. The human spirit moves through darkness, danger, and uncertainty in search of the self.

Here, the sun is not only a source of light. It is a threshold. To move through it is to be tested, burned, revealed, and transformed. Fire becomes both trial and witness; light becomes both force and destination. The work reflects on the enduring struggle between light and darkness, creation and destruction, good and evil, while asking what it means to survive forces larger than the self.

Within this mythological framework, the search for light becomes both cosmic and deeply personal. Through the Sun is a meditation on endurance, truth, and the possibility of renewal after passage through fire.
—SC

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Shaghayegh Cyrous is a transdisciplinary artist whose immersive practice spans multimedia installation, performance, painting, and social practice. Rooted in mythology, nature, and social and political power dynamics, her work explores identity, belonging, and the spiritual threads that connect us across time and culture. Through poetic imagery and theatrical environments, Cyrous brings forward hidden stories passed down through myth, poetry, and acts of resistance, creating dreamlike spaces where the ancient and contemporary meet.

Cyrous received her BA in Visual Art from the Science and Culture University of Tehran and her MFA in Social Practice from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Cyrous has exhibited and performed internationally at venues such as Tehran MOCA, the British Museum in London, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Institut für Alles Mögliche in Berlin, Germany, the Anchorage Museum in Alaska, Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and Netflix’s Invisible Billboard and the billboard of the City of West Hollywood in Los Angeles.