Noon-o-namak, (bread and salt)
Artist
Soleimani, Sheida
American, b. 1990
Date2021
MediumArchival pigment print
DimensionsFrame: 61 1/2 x 45 1/4 x 2 1/4 in. (156.2 x 114.9 x 5.7 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2025:130
About the ArtistSheida Soleimani creates staged photographs that fuse sculpture, performance, and installation. Her series Ghostwriters (2022–ongoing) confronts the exploitation of migrant labor within the global oil industry. Drawing from interviews with oil workers and whistleblowers, Soleimani translates testimony into theatrical sets populated with constructed props and symbols, transforming hidden systems of labor and extraction into vivid, allegorical scenes. In much of her work, including Ghostwriters, Soleimani photographs her parents—former political refugees from Iran—as performers within these staged environments, drawing a direct line between her family’s history of displacement and broader narratives of state violence, exile, and survival. Soleimani received a BFA from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and she is currently based in Providence, Rhode Island, and teaches at Brandeis University.Soleimani’s work has been widely exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland; Queens Museum, New York; Photographers’ Gallery, London; and Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. Her projects have been featured in publications such as Artforum, The New York Times, The Guardian, and VICE. She has been recognized with awards and fellowships from the Franklin Furnace Fund, Puffin Foundation, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, among others, and her photographs are held in several public and private collections.
