In this episode of Home Fires, we discuss the first work in Sheida Soleimani's new series, Reparations Packages, entitled Italy & Libya (2019). The series reframes the paying of reparations as a global practice by which nations turn the ethics of historical injustices into playing fields for geopolitical and economic interests.
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The photographs employ illusion and visual metaphor in a manner recalling the sets of early 20th century travelling theatre companies. Each image is populated with hand-made props that serve as cultural signifiers and clues to the identities and colonial legacies that the image interrogates.
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"Soleimani disrupts political and economic power through appropriation, photomontage, and orony, creating visual allegories that both document and criticize official agents and events."
-Professor Matthew Biro
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In the studio
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Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2015. Her recent series Medium of Exchange was the subject of solo exhibitions at Southern Utah Museum of Art (Cedar City, UT, USA), 2019; Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH, USA), 2018; Atlanta Contemporary (GA, USA), 2018; and CUE Arts Foundation (New York, NY, USA), 2018. In 2019, Soleimani participated in the deCordova Biennial (deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA, USA). In 2021, she will be have a solo exhibition at Fabric Workshop and Museum. Her work has been recognized internationally in both exhibitions and publications such as Artforum, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Interview Magazine and VICE Magazine, amongst many others. Soleimani resides in Providence, RI, and is a professor of studio art at Brandeis University, and formerly at the Rhode Island School of Design.
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I FIND MEDIA SPECIFICITY TO BE STIFLING. INSTEAD OF THINKING OF THE MEANS BY WHICH AN IMAGE IS CREATED, WE SHOULD BE THINKING ABOUT THE CONTENT PRESENT IN THE IMAGE AND HOW TO ANALYZE IT - REGARDLESS OF ITS METHOD OF CREATION.
-SHEIDA SOLEIMANI
