Sheida Soleimani
Sheida Soleimani (she/her) is an Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist. The daughter of political refugees who escaped Iran in the early 1980s, Soleimani makes work that excavates the histories of violence linking Iran, the United States, and the Greater Middle East. In working across form and medium—especially photography, sculpture, collage, and film—she often appropriates source images from popular/digital media and resituates them within defamiliarizing tableaux. The composition depends on the question at hand. For example, how can one do justice to survivor testimony and to the survivors themselves (To Oblivion)? What are the connections between oil, corruption, and human rights abuses among OPEC nations (Medium of Exchange)? How do nations work out reparations deals that often turn the ethics of historical injustice into playing fields for their own economic interests (Reparations Packages)? In contrast to Western news which rarely covers these problems, Soleimani makes work that persuades spectators to address them directly and effectively. Soleimani is also an assistant professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University and a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
Sheida Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA from the University of Cincinnati. Her recent solo exhibitions include Ghostwriter at Edel Assanti (London, UK), Negotiators at Kunsthaus Photoforum Pasquart (Biel, Switzerland), Ghostwriter at Providence College Galleries (Providence, RI), Levers of Power at Silver Eye Centre for Photography (Pittsburgh, PA), Hotbed at Denny Dimin Gallery (New York, NY), Medium of Exchange at Southern Utah Museum of Art (Cedar City, UT) and CUE Art Foundation (New York, NY). Selected group exhibitions include the current Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Eyes on Iran, a Four Freedoms and Vital Voices project at the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island (New York, NY), A Trillion Sunsets at the International Center of Photography (New York, NY), Immune Project at the Living Art Museum (Reykjavik, Iceland), Denunciation! at ACC Gallery (Weimar, Germany), the deCordova Biennial at the deCordova Museum of Art (Lincoln, MA), and Ecologies of Darkness at SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin, Germany). Soleimani is included in prestigious permanent collections including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Art Center (Cambridge, MA). Her work has been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Vogue, Artnet News, Boston Art Review, Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, ArtNews, The British Journal of Photography, Whitewall, and Art Asia Pacific. Sheida Soleimani is represented by Denny Gallery (New York), Edel Assanti (London, UK) and Harlan Levey Projects (Brussels, Belgium).
Memory Bird
“Memory Bird” is a sculptural fountain produced by artist and federally licensed bird rehabilitator Sheida Soleimani. Sheida has been using her experiences with bird rehabilitation to inform her practice as an artist interrogate what it means to be in community with the non-human. Featuring a collection of terracotta and glass birds atop a copper basin, her installation seeks to commemorate the birds that have passed away in Roger Williams Park. While bringing attention to the deaths of these countless birds at the Park, the piece also hopes to provide an element of care for the existing birds and will be designed specifically for them. As such, the “opening reception” will be livestreamed so as not to disturb the space for its avian visitors.
Through the past year, Sheida has invited the community to participate in numerous bird release events, and this sculptural piece will be the culmination of her interventions at the Providence Commemoration Lab.
