Abstract
Sheida Soleimani’s solo exhibition brings together her full “Ghostwriter” series—visually arresting photographs, sculpture, and video that piece together the remarkable journey of her parents' escape from Iran’s totalitarian regime. Through constructed sets and surreal visual metaphors, Soleimani reconstructs their fractured history into works of resistance and reckoning. This deeply personal series presents a family’s survival story as a larger meditation on identity, memory, and political trauma. This marks the first time the artist is presenting video work in a museum context.
Soleimani, raised in Cincinnati’s Loveland neighborhood, is an Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist whose multimedia work excavates histories of political violence connecting Iran, the United States, and the broader Middle East. Born to parents who fled Iran as political refugees in the early 1980s, Soleimani transforms source images from mass and digital media into striking photo-based installations, often staged in surreal, symbolic environments. Her practice spans photography, sculpture, collage, and film, offering viewers layered critiques of authoritarianism, exile, and diaspora.