Our Services: Embodied Practice & Research 

Artistic Education Courses

Designed to bridge critical theory and embodied practice, these courses invite participants into a dynamic process of writing, movement, and vocal exploration. Through autoethnographic methods and practice-as-research methodologies, participants critically engage their own positionality and cultural contexts through embodied, intercultural reflection.

This approach equips participants with tools to understand and apply theory in both academic writing and creative practice, grounding critical inquiry in lived experience.

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Consulting

Offering a responsive and relational approach, our consulting supports individuals and teams in identifying and transforming dominant language and movement patterns that sustain exclusionary practices.

Adaptive, embodied methods cultivate awareness and provide practical tools for improving communication, collaboration, and organizational culture in ways that support equity and care.

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Curated Projects & Programming

This core service invites participants to co-create projects that integrate embodied practice and research. Each curated pathway evolves with the needs of the participants, building adaptable strategies for lasting impact in arts and peacebuilding contexts.

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Zoya Sardashti, Founder & Artistic Director

Zoya is exceptionally good in listening - and in re-phrasing what had been said, which helps one's own voicing of thoughts. The teaching is very engaging, encouraging participation through gentleness. It includes creative approaches and manages to shift beyond one's comfort zone without feeling uncomfortable at any moment.

I really don't know how to put it in words but I just loved your teaching and your presence.

-Hee Yeong, PhD Philosophy


THE BODY IS ONE’S HOME

Sharing Narratives That Shift Perspectives

We use the concept “the body is one’s home” to describe the body as a living archive, one that holds personal and collective experiences shaped by social and cultural structures. Many of these experiences remain unexamined due to systemic violence and internalized hierarchies.

Through our adaptive practice-as-research methodology, participants access, document, and share narratives of self-knowledge. This embodied process fosters critical reflection, translating personal awareness into relational insight.

In a world where inequity is often normalized, Home Soil Projects activates performance-based practices to help participants examine tensions within the body and respond to shifting cultural landscapes. The work leads to context-specific outcomes such as performances, interventions, and academic writing grounded in lived experience.

Rather than uphold rigid definitions of identity and citizenship, we create inclusive spaces where belonging emerges through co-created understanding. By cultivating empathy, adaptability, and deep attention to relational dynamics, our work strengthens interconnection between people, communities, and the environments we inhabit.

Reclaiming Maternal Lineage: The “Parricida” Performance as an Act of Care and Resistance – Care Ethics, Aesthetics, & Repair, 3rd Care Ethics Conference, Soesterberg, Netherlands | 2025 Photo by Thomas de Wit


Meet THE FOUNDER

Zoya Sardashti | Performer & Socially Engaged Artist

Zoya Sardashti is a transdisciplinary artist and conflict transformation specialist whose life and work are shaped by early experiences of cultural displacement in the southern United States. Born in Denver, Colorado to an Iranian father and Anglo American mother, Zoya grew up in environments where belonging was rarely given and often had to be claimed. From a young age, they were asked, often demanded, to explain their origin or the meaning of their name. When answering honestly, their body was viewed as a site of conflict rather than simply human. The pressure to narrate multilayered, often traumatic histories and to provide context as if they were a political analyst revealed the emotional toll of being positioned as a cultural translator. These encounters laid the foundation for using performance as a means of social repair.

Above all, their practice is anchored in the understanding that when shared, our personal histories become a source of insight, resilience, and collective growth.

A Global Impact

With over 30 projects globally, Zoya has collaborated with universities, arts organizations, and peacebuilding institutions over the past 16 years. In each project, they initiate cross-cultural dialogue that shifts perceived boundaries around ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, citizenship, and ability.

Across diverse communities and geographies, Zoya co-creates platforms through Home Soil Projects where performance research, community engagement, and peacebuilding intersect. This work cultivates practices that explore socially just ways of being together.

A person sitting at a table on stage, with a large screen behind them displaying a quote about nonviolence by Angela Davis. The setting appears to be a lecture or presentation in a dimly lit room.

Public Talk at Silent Green Vorspiel/Transmediale-CTM Berlin 2022


WHERE WE’VE WORKED

Innsbruck — Arnhem — Berlin — The Hague — Leiden — Seoul — San Diego — Los Angeles — Milan — Glurns — Bozen — Florence — Venice — London — Kathmandu — Soesterberg

Innsbruck — Arnhem — Berlin — The Hague — Leiden — Seoul — San Diego — Los Angeles — Milan — Glurns — Bozen — Florence — Venice — London — Kathmandu — Soesterberg