The Quiet Seepage of Everyday Life: Vahid Danaiefar and “Liquid Fear” at Simbart Projects

In today’s world, fear rarely manifests as a sudden, tangible threat. Rather, it turns into a pervasive anxiety with no clear origin, quietly seeping into everyday habits, familiar spaces, and ordinary objects. Iranian artist Vahid Danaiefar focuses on this invisible yet ever-present realm of the uncanny in “Liquid Fear,” his first solo exhibition in Turkey. Hosted by Simbart Projects from September 11 to October 31, 2026, the exhibition questions how the very elements we equate with a sense of security slowly unravel.

Centering his practice on Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of fear as diffuse, uncertain, and unanchored from institutional grounds, Danaiefar underpins this conceptual spine with Sigmund Freud’s theory of the uncanny (das Unheimliche). The paintings, videos, and installations featured in the show do not present a world entirely alien to the viewer. On the contrary, while the objects, figures, and spaces we know intimately remain in place, subtle interventions disrupt the relationships between them and the meanings they carry.

Rather than pursuing grand dramatic narratives or explicit imagery of catastrophe, Danaiefar engages with the traces and quiet echoes an event leaves behind. By stretching ordinary visual codes, he dismantles the comfort zone generated by the familiar. Fear is thus liberated from being tied to a specific object or a fleeting shock, transforming instead into an ambient atmosphere that permeates the fabric of everyday reality—one we carry with us at every moment.