Sheida Soleimani On Her Collectible Print for A.i.A.’s Spring Issue

Each issue of A.i.A. comes with a limited-edition artist’s print, and in our Spring issue, we invited Sheida Soleimani to contribute a special collectible work. Soleimani interrogates the narratives disseminated by the press and social media in a practice that fuses sculpture, performance, and photography. In her ongoing series “Levers of Power,” the Iranian American artist recontextualizes images of public figures to reveal how seemingly simple gestures—a pointed finger, a clenched fist—inform perceptions of people both familiar and foreign. Armita (2024), the special pull-out print that accompanies the Spring issue, is a new entry in the “Levers” series. Below, Soleimani tells A.i.A. the story behind the work’s revolutionary symbols.