RESIDENT RESEARCHER

Website: www.elyanashamselangeroodi.co
Instagram: @elyana.shams
Email: elyana@nyu.edu

Elyana Shams (aka Elyana Javaheri) is an award-winning Iranian multidisciplinary artist, designer, researcher and founder based in Brooklyn, New York. An exploration of visual poetry, her work manifests by merging a variety of mediums and disciplines; namely narrative environments, audio/video installations, immersive stories, virtual reality, mixed media paintings, and digital collages. Her work has been a part of over thirty group exhibitions globally, as well as a solo exhibition in Tehran. Named a New Talent by frame:work in 2024, she most recently was invited to collaborate on Midnight in Abyssinia as the spatial narrative designer and media artist, at CultureHub NYC. 

Building on her previous academic and professional background in landscape architecture, coupled with her passion and dedication to social justice and environmental psychology, Elyana founded and serves as the CEO of Myla, a nonprofit startup that creates research-based interactive virtual reality healing gardens. Working closely with Cesar Loayza, the CPO of Myla, they aim to bring the benefits of healing gardens to children who need it most, yet have been deprived of them due to socio-economic or geo-political difficulties. Additionally, as a Design Fellow at the Marron Institute and the creative director of the Nature Box Project, Elyana leads the design and installation of projects within select correctional facilities nationwide, crafting nature-inspired interior spaces that offer residents moments of pause and grounding.

Concurrent to her ITP residency in New York, Elyana is working as the art director, co-producer, and creative technologist of a unique collaboration of a large-scale performance in Tehran. She’s also expanding her research work through a collaborative project depicting AI-generated imagery and biases they hold against certain narratives.

Elyana received her Master’s in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and holds a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from Virginia Tech School of Design.