Rah Eleh focuses on how race and gender are performed from multiple layered perspectives by questioning the value and legitimacy of authenticity. From her context as a Canadian-Iranian exilic and diasporic artist, she critiques visual stereotypes and performative aspects that shape female gender, national and cultural identity. 

Rah Eleh is a video, digital and performance artist and a PhD candidate at the die Angewandte (University of Applied Arts) in Vienna, Austria. Rah’s work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at spaces including: Venice Biennale (ECC, Palazzo Mora), The Juno Awards (Canada), National Museum (Oslo, Norway), Vögele Kultur Zentrum, (Pfäffikon, Switzerland), Nuit Blanche (Toronto), Museum London, Vienna Art Week (Austria), Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa), Williams College Museum of Art (Williamstown, Massachusetts), Miami Art Basel, Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem, Netherlands), SomoS Art Haus (Berlin, Germany), Kunsthaus Graz Museum (Graz, Austria), and Onassis Cultural Center (Athens, Greece). She has been the recipient of numerous awards including: Long listed for 2023 Sobey Art Award, Chalmers Arts Fellowship, numerous Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Art Council Grants, and SSHRC for her MFA and the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship for her PhD. She has been awarded several residencies including the ONX Studio (NYC, NY, 2024), Intergenerational LGBTQ Artist Residency (Toronto Island, 2019), Koumaria Residency (Greece, 2016), MUU Galleria (Helsinki, 2015), Studio Das Weisse Haus (Vienna, 2014) and the Artslant Georgia Fee Residency (Paris).