The day I found my purpose at work
A Career Moment with Azadeh Emadi
Everyone’s career matters. From those in the early stages, to those with a longer story.
We all have a tale to tell, and often there are moments that just have some special meaning or consequence.
In this series we ask people about a career moment and how this influenced, even in small ways, their career or learning. It’s not about a life story or a documentary — it’s a moment.
Using a moment allows early career as well as those with established careers to contribute. Indeed, hearing about moments from early career folk is highly informative in understanding the thinking of those just starting out — it helps us see the world through the lens of youth.
This series makes no assumptions about stage or when a ‘career’ started or career breaks/changes. It makes no assumptions about success.
The moment can be anything. An opportunity or an act of kindness or support; an activity or project; hearing a talk or reading a book; seeing someone from afar yet sensing a role model…
…and now a Career Moment with Azadeh Emadi
Azadeh is a video artist and academic at the University of Glasgow. Azadeh’s work addresses socio-environmental issues and creates space for cultural dialogues and effective engagement with unrepresented communities.
The underlying focus of her research is to investigate new ways of seeing by applying historical Persian concepts and arts within contemporary Western schools of thought and moving image. To do so, she interrogates and explores digital technologies of perception for new audio-visual modes of communication that embark on sensory and intuitive knowledge.
Azadeh’s research practice brings new perspectives to real life events and current socio-cultural issues.
Hello Azadeh, thank you for agreeing to share your career moment and for being so open. I wonder if you could briefly share your chosen moment.
When I think about a career moment, I keep returning to one of my earliest experiences. Perhaps because it was one of the most important moments and set in motion the rest of my professional life, leading to other significant moments.
It was my first year of university, and recently immigrated to New Zealand. I was studying to become a designer while hoping to do a postgraduate one day. My first lecturer, who influenced my academic growth enormously, informed me about a video-installation art about my country of origin, Iran, in Auckland Art Gallery by an acclaimed international artist.
In visiting the artwork, I found myself feeling conflicted and deeply sad.
That is quite an emotional reaction. Can you tell us why you felt so conflicted and sad?
The artwork, which was supposed to represent people and culture I knew well, distorted and magnified a socio-political issue for the Western audience’s viewing.
In my view, the work was less about the actual people as individuals and more politically driven — a misrepresentation of people and affirmation of a cliché image already moulded by the mainstream Western media.
I didn’t need to live in NZ too long in order to realise that most people un-knowingly judge ‘others’ based on what is presented by media. One may feel frustrated, powerless and sometimes even hopeless. So, with these feelings, it could seem easier to stick to the familiar because how can you continuously explain yourself to the world? But do you even need to do that? Aren’t we all different?
Being young in a different country and facing my unique challenges, these and many other questions occupied my mind.
What did you learn from this experience?
Once you embrace an unfamiliar, you find confidence in facing it again!
I was already in an unfamiliar place, so I might as well embrace it and everything that comes with it and learn from it — this was my way of channelling my feelings constructively and learning from them. I decided to use the same medium and turn it against itself to show a different image (fast forward, I am still doing the same in my research and practice)!
I began using film and video art in my design projects, only to realise their power in creating impacts and allowing me to subtly communicate messages and generate (e)motions that words could not do for me.
I was challenging the world around me while discovering new worlds for myself.
What changed as a result of this career moment?
The impacts created through my film and video installations were noticed, and lecturers encouraged me to do things in my own way within certain parameters. The freedom given was their biggest gift to me and the biggest challenge too!
I learned to teach myself what I needed to bring a vision to life. I also learned that I couldn’t wait for others to solve my problems and was responsible.
Here, the skills I learned to become a designer were beneficial. To solve a problem, one should identify possible solutions by looking at it from various angles and determining whatever helps a solution. I would either learn the skills or, if learning was not an option, find people with expertise to show or help.
Were there any unanticipated realisations because of this moment?
Developing the skill to observe (and identify issues, questions, or challenges) and connect to people have proved critical to my professional life and otherwise. This meant that my stories and work were also about other people and their stories.
Realising one is not a separate being, but whatever we do is part of a chain of cause and effect, even if imperceptible, I started to think at the micro and macro levels. People around me were crucial to my progress and helped me identify and nurture my strengths.
When we become a reflection of people and events around us, they eventually become part of us, and whatever you/they do affects the whole — our personal growth is tied to the collective.
Do you have any advice for organisations around supporting and enabling careers?
We know that institutions are collective organisations, often dismissing that despite the existing hierarchies, their members are (should be) at the core.
Fast forward to my PhD and even now at the University of Glasgow, my progress has always been the result of support from a small local collective within these organisations, often by one or two people who are open to different views or new challenges and willing to learn despite (or beyond) institutional limitations and boundaries (e.g. willing to know me and my ideas as a person, embracing an interdisciplinary project, or investing in an ambitious or rather ‘unclear’ but potentially a promising idea! Sometimes it can even be a brief informal conversation or advice and recommendations).
Actions of a few people lead to positive and often innovative outcomes, which set an example and encourage others to do similar. The result is that the local starts to influence the larger structure.
However, this is not about a self-fulfilling prophecy. My visions, directly or indirectly, are centred around people and drive my actions.
Based on my experiences, I would advise Universities to recognise the singularity of their employees, identify and nurture motivated and talented individuals, and support curiosity and (calculated) risk taking, which can be possible by allowing some flexibilities in their traditional structures without compromising the rigours.
It’s important to appreciate the process of doing innovative research and practices, not only recognise the outcomes.
Perhaps more than ever, our world needs new visions and different ways of addressing its complex challenges, with people who can imagine a more harmonious world and are willing to identify or build possible paths to this future and brave enough to journey on the path.
But, in my experience, no individual can make changes on their own (or, better to say, it would be unlikely or highly challenging to do so) — it is a collective effort and support.
I think Universities should be the safe ground and the collective for those with vision and those who can potentially become future influencers and leaders. This will surely benefit them in the short and long term.
Do you have any career advice for others?
Try and overcome the fear of rejection, embrace the unfamiliar and continuously reflect on whatever is going on around you.
If a scholar inspired my vision or if the idea would benefit from an expert’s input, I was willing to do my homework and then make contacts. The fear of rejection is real and can stop taking action, particularly for someone in the early stages of their career.
I remember a few occasions when I was advised not to make a ‘fool of myself’ by contacting a ‘high profile person’. I trusted my gut feeling and my ideas, made contact, and those individuals were humble enough to respond and have become my greatest mentors and friends, and I am grateful. In return, I could contribute to them and our relationship in time as I developed in my career. These formed my local collectives and eventually supported others, particularly younger people, on the path.
From all that I have done, I learned that, in whatever I do, I must be humble and recognise people as who they are despite their (lack of) labels or hierarchies while respecting and recognising their achievements fully (big or small).
Everyone has something to teach, and I can learn from them even if (especially) my students, and it’s OK to say ‘I don’t know’ — this I particularly observed and learned from one of my PhD supervisors who is an acclaimed and influential scholar in the field. After my PhD, I developed an idea for an online community of researchers and creative practitioners interested in intercultural approaches to film and media art and co-founded this research network with my PhD supervisor. Its members are from various countries, some in their early careers and others are well established in the field.
In my work as a researcher and experimental filmmaker, I still embrace the unfamiliar on regular bases and continuously reflect on whatever is going on around me.
I like working with scientists and exploring different technologies, and investigating new approaches to audio-visual communication only so I can understand human perception, push the boundaries and find new ways of seeing the world, finding and telling hidden stories.
This means I have to continuously learn new things and manage new and different projects.
For me, the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us fundamentally shapes our communities, and new technologies are central to this.
And finally, we have three quick-fire questions for you.
What do you value — these are something you aim for and hopefully bring to any role.
Curiosity and critical thinking; innovation and empathy; interdisciplinarity and intercultural collaborations; challenge-led design and teamwork
Emerging skills. Which emerging skill sets for working and living would you prioritise.
Novel & adaptive systems thinking; Cross-cultural competency; Empathy; Transdisciplinarity; Multi-level collaboration
What gives you energy?
To find connections between seemingly disconnected points that can then offer new insights and solutions to a problem or an existing argument, to then see the impact of the new finding or creative outcome on a group of people.
You can find out more about Azadeh here:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/azadehemadi/
You can access a list of Azadeh’s Exhibitions on ORCID
Motion Within Motion. Investigating Digital Video in Light of Substantial Motion
Touch Post-COVID-19. Navigating through deafblindness in a post-pandemic world.
Substantial Motion Research Network. An international research network for scholars and practitioners interested in cross-cultural exploration of media art and philosophy
Experience some of Azadeh’s video work on Vimeo Azadeh Emadi(NZ)
Work website University of Glasgow — Schools — School of Culture & Creative Arts — Our staff — Dr Azadeh Emadi
If you found this article interesting or useful, then you can find others on Medium at The Curious Researchers
Before you go, if you’ve found value in this post please give it some claps.
