Sheida Soleimani

 

Sheida Soleimani’s work explores intersections of art and activism, melding sculpture, performance, film and photography to highlight critical perspectives on events across the Middle East, unpicking the complex power dynamics between the region and western nations. Soleimani’s work interrogates the dissemination of information in digital contexts, adapting found images from press and social media leaks to exist within alternative scenarios. Her photographs document constructed sets within her studio, in which repeating images carve out trompe l’oeil perspectives in a visual metaphor for the competing political narratives relayed by her source materials. 

 

Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015.  Recent solo exhibitions include Panjereh, International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, New York, USA (2025); no breath, no breeze, ICA Maine, Portland, Maine, USA (2024); The Banner Project: Ghostwriter, MFA Boston, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2023); Ghostwriter, Edel Assanti, London, UK (2023); Negotiators, Kunsthaus Photoforum Pasquart, Biel, CH  (2022); Ghostwriter, Providence College Galleries, Providence, USA (2022); ILVA, Castello San Basilio, Basilicata, Italy (2022); Levers of Power, Silver Eye Centre for Photography, Pittsburgh, USA (2021); Hotbed, Denny Dimin Gallery, New York, USA (2020); Medium of Exchange, Southern Utah Museum of Art, Utah; CUE Art Foundation, New York; Cincinnati Contemporary Art, Cincinnati and Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, all USA (2018-2019). Selected group exhibitions include Uncanny, National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., US (2025); Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest, South London Gallery, London, UK (2024); Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America, PAFA, Philadelphia, USA (2023); A Trillion Sunsets, ICP, New York, USA (2022); Immune Project, Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland (2022); Denunciation!, ACC Gallery, Weimar, Germany (2021); deCordova Biennial, deCordova Museum of Art, Lincoln, USA (2019); Ecologies of Darkness, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany (2019). Soleimani lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.