Connecting with the language of advertising, Shirana Shahbazi commissioned Iranian billboard painter Sirous Shaghaghi to translate her studio photographs onto canvas. To create Still life: coconut and other things, a workshop was conducted at the Children’s Art Centre with a group of local Brisbane primary school children.

Discussions introduced the history of the still-life genre, the artist and her work, inspiring participants to compose their own still-life arrangements. The composition of locally available fruits and foliage was then transformed into an immense artwork by the billboard painter Sirous Shaghaghi in Iran.

The final result is a truly global still-life painting, in terms of both its subject and its makers.