Majid Adin (Akhondzadeh-Darjazi) Iranian, 1978

Majid Adin (Akhondzadeh-Darjazi) (Mashhad, Iran, 1978)

Born in Mashhad, Iran, in 1978, Majid Adin is an artist, illustrator, animator, and filmmaker whose work is deeply shaped by his personal experience of exile and migration. Forced to leave Iran because of his critical stance toward the regime, he embarked in 2015 on a long journey across Europe and the Middle East, eventually settling in the United Kingdom in 2016.

His practice encompasses painting, drawing, animation, illustration, and visual arts, with a particular focus on themes of identity, memory, freedom, displacement, and the search for belonging. His works often emerge from the intersection of autobiographical experience and collective reflection, transforming personal stories into narratives that address universal issues related to migration and the human condition.

Adin’s visual language is distinguished by a strong narrative and symbolic dimension, in which figures, landscapes, and fragments of memory come together in evocative and poetic compositions. Through images suspended between reality and imagination, the artist explores the delicate balance between past and present, roots and transformation, individuality and cultural belonging.

An example of this approach is Mirroring (2019), a work composed of five elements whose arrangement brings figures, memories, and symbolic references into dialogue, evoking some of the central themes of the artist’s practice, including identity, belonging, and transformation.

Throughout his career, he has collaborated with numerous cultural institutions and international organizations. He gained particular recognition in 2017 for creating the animated video for Elton John’s Rocket Man, reinterpreted through the perspective of a refugee’s journey. He has also worked with UNHCR, Choose Love, and other organizations committed to human rights and social inclusion.

Today, the artist lives and works in London.