Sheida Soleimani

Through photography, film, performance and sculpture, Sheida Soleimani offers both a poignant analysis of image-building in the contemporary media landscape and a critical view on international politics and its power relationships. Source images from press and social media are transformed into staged sets and documented with a camera. As unspoken truths are turned towards the grotesque in confrontational and overtly patchworked scenes, Soleimani sheds light on the coded way (political) messages are disseminated in a global context while satirizing both East and West. In doing so she unveils a barely covered-up reality that is no less surreal than the images constructed in her studio. A daughter of political refugees persecuted by the Iranian government in the 1980s, Soleimani’s practice explores the intersections of art and activism. 

Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015. She recently exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at Photoforum Pasquart (CH), Providence College Galleries (US) and Castello San Basilio (IT). Her exhibition Medium of Exchange was shown at Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, US), Atlanta Contemporary (US), and CUE Arts Foundation (New York, US), among others. In 2019 she had a solo exhibition at the Southern Utah Museum of Art (US), and participated in the deCordova Biennial (Lincoln, US). Soleimani presented a monumental version of her work Mahsa (2022) at the Eyes on Iran project at New York’s FDR Four Freedoms State Park alongside works by JR, Sepideh Mehraban, Mahvash Mostala, Aphrodite Désirée Navab, Shirin Neshat, Icy and Sot, Hank Willis Thomas, Shirin Towfiq, and Z in 2022 and spoke at the inaugural event.  Her work has been recognized internationally in both exhibitions and publications, such as Artforum, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Interview Magazine, and Hyperallergic. Soleimani resides in Providence (US), where she is a professor of studio art at Brandeis University.