Anahita Sadighi

Meet The Gallerist:

Anahita Sadighi

12 August 2026

Meet The Gallerist:

Anahita Sadighi

12 August 2026

Q: You opened your gallery at 26. What did you know that the established art world didn't, and looking back, what do you wish someone had told you?  

A: I think it was less knowledge in the classical sense than a certain instinct. I wasn't interested in fitting into established categories, neither the question of what a gallery should show, nor the expectation of what a young woman with Persian roots was supposedly meant to represent. I wanted to create a space where different disciplines, histories and sensibilities could coexist. This openness has proven to be a compass. It allowed me to find my own path and kept opening new ones. Looking back, I also think I understood early on how much this work is built on relationships and trust and that both only develop over time. What I wish I had known is that the risk never really disappears, it just changes shape. Freedom always comes paired with vulnerability.  

Q: Your gallery brings together ancient Persian art, non-Western objects, and contemporary work in the same room. What does the selection process look like, how do you know when a combination is right?

A: For me, the selection process rarely begins with a concept that I impose on the works, it begins with looking closely and paying attention. Every object, whether a vessel thousands of years old or a contemporary piece, carries its own language. My task is to bring these languages into relation with each other, without subordinating one to the other. A combination is right when a genuine dialogue emerges between the works, when material, symbolism or a particular gesture speak to each other across centuries. In the end, it is about making visible a continuity, that questions of beauty, meaning and expression keep posing themselves anew through time.

Q: Has being a woman influenced the way you approach your work, or how it’s perceived?

A: I believe that a certain way of thinking and working, one I experience as deeply feminine, has shaped my practice: moving simultaneously across different spaces and roles, connecting, intuitively bringing different worlds together. I don't feel bound to any fixed idea of femininity, but I recognise in this attitude something to do with creation, with the ability to connect things, to nurture and to transform. As a woman with Iranian roots, I am repeatedly confronted with expectations placed on me from outside. I experience this not only personally but also see it in how people speak about Iranian art and the women who create it. I learned early on to position myself against such simplifying attributions.

"In the end, I believe this is exactly where a responsibility lies: to create spaces in which complexity doesn't need to be explained or justified."

Q: You play at Sonnenraum, Coco Boule, Haus der Visonäre: venues that sit at a very specific intersection of club culture and contemporary art. Do you think Berlin is the only city where that intersection actually exists with this kind of depth? Or is that a story we tell ourselves about Berlin?

A: Berlin has a particular density of spaces where music, art and social practice overlap naturally. There are historical reasons for that: a city that has been renegotiated again and again, in which free spaces emerged. Gaps became fields of experimentation and part of that attitude is still felt today. At the same time, I notice how much this freedom is currently under pressure. What makes Berlin special to me is less the uniqueness of this intersection than the density with which it is lived here. Nightlife has long been more than a cultural sector, it is part of a city's social infrastructure. New aesthetics and forms of togetherness have emerged from it over the years, often long before institutions even noticed.

Q: Which places in Berlin do you keep returning to?

A: Savignyplatz is where I grew up and where I returned to live and work today. Autorenbuchhandlung and Bücherbogen are among my favourite bookshops there. For the evenings, A Trane Jazz Bar has stayed a constant, jazz is a big love of mine, and Charlottenburg holds some of the oldest and most alive clubs in the city. Sonnenraum, Heideglühen and Panorama Bar are amongst my favourite clubs in Berlin. Right behind Savignyplatz is Diener Tattersall, and Elephant High is a small, family-run Thai spot. Among my favourite museums are the James Simon Gallery and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. At another favourite Berlin location, Haus der Visionäre, we're hosting a new festival project this September called Soft Power, a special project of Berlin Art Week.