Sheida Soleimani’s work "The Blind Owl" is part of her ongoing project "Ghostwriter", in which she takes on the role of the ghostwriter to tell her family’s stories of political persecution. The image nods to Sadegh Hedayat’s eponymous literary work, which evades linear events to allow for open ended interpretations, dipping and diving into memory, fragmentation and magical realism. The photo also roots itself in the scent of orange blossom water, made from displaced sour oranges, which dangle before the bird’s eyes. The fruit were grown from seeds her mother brought from her garden when she escaped Iran; the owl is one of thousands of birds which have come into Soleimani’s care in the last five years. It came to her blind and ill, and had to be euthanized by the artist and her mother. The image captures a metaphorical burying of the owl in the garden which the exiled family can no longer visit, a frozen image in a complex tale of generational care, loss and absence.

Works from the "Ghostwriter" project have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Providence College Galleries and The Center for Contemporary Art (Cincinnati, USA-upcoming, 2025), and acquired by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NY, USA), The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK).