Sheida Soleimani. Trapping Season, 2017. Archival pigment print 61 x 45.7 cm 24 x 20 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
While Coming Together
Speaking inwards reveals much. In this conversation, it is Sheida's practices of care and labor that light the path we walk. In tracing memories, Sheida's stories have us consider care for self and for the web of relations we inhabit. Sheida's work, too, is concerned with the power wielded by institutions and governments and how they flatten and shred(or attempt to) any politic that challenges "what power seems to be up to" at the present moment(la paperson). Considered are the false promises of neoliberal multiculturalism and liberalism; and, all the while, breathe is shared and presence formed. Sheida's stories, art and politic flash through not just the discursive or ideological contours by which we frame our thoughts but also through our embodied experiences. Under colonial order, what do mind and body internalize? What colonial desires and banal attitudes have we yet to expel from within us? - Angel Gutierrez
Decolonization is a collective endeavor...we carry the lords within us because of our cowardice and laziness
- Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Aymara Sociologist, Historian and Subaltern Theorist
Artist Info
Sheida Soleimani is an Iranian-American interdisciplinary visual artist, activist and professor based in Providence, Rhode Island whose work takes a magnifying glass to look at the relationship between and amongst political elites, governments, powerful organizations and corporations in Iran, as well as the various forms of resistance which take place. Her elaborate works utilize tableau photography and operate like montages through which one flashes through a particular politic and its internal/external manifestations. Tensions are formed that beg of us to ask: Where do we lie with respect to the current socio-political order and its maintenance? & How do we internalize the dominant orders' visual cultures and gestures?
Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA from the University of Cincinnati, College of Art.
Her work has been written on in BOMB Magainze, academic journals, the New York Times. Her approach is emphatic of the position of artists as critics of the social and political orders they are in and how these orders arrange time, space, and feeling(Biro). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA.
Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA from the University of Cincinnati, College of Art.
Her work has been written on in BOMB Magainze, academic journals, the New York Times. Her approach is emphatic of the position of artists as critics of the social and political orders they are in and how these orders arrange time, space, and feeling(Biro). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA.
Host Info
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Angel Gutierrez is a Xicanx student-artist at the University of Pennsylvania studying anthropology and philosophy. Out-and-alongside coursework they maintain interest and practice in voguing, film, electronic music, and oral histories
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Transcript
a guitar pluck, a robin chirp tune us in
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American Robin with Sheida. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani
Angel Gutierrez
Thank you to all who are tuning in and joining me for a conversation and storytelling with Sheida Soleimani. Together we unravel misgivings with the artworld and its forms of censorship, problems with liberal notions of repair, and Sheida's memories and practices and care. Hi all, this is Angel Gutierrez speaking from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also known as Lenapehoking, the ancestral lands of the Lenni Lenape peoples, and today I am in conversation and convergence with Sheida Soleimani. Sheida Soleimani is an Iranian-American multimedia visual artist, activist and professor based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her work, takes a magnifying glass to look at the relationships between and amongst political elites, governments, powerful organizations and corporations in Iran, as well as the various forms of resistance which take place. Thank you so much for connecting with me today, Sheida. Sheida Soleimani Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me It's been really exciting getting to know you through our conversations. Angel Likewise, and before we began, I wanted to read a quote from Black queer feminist scholar, Alexis Pauline Gumbs from her book long meditation "Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals", and I'd like to take a deep breath with you afterwards if that's all right with you? Sheida Yeah, that sounds lovely Angel Breath is a practice of presence. One of the fiscal characteristics that unites us with Marine mammals is that they process air in a way similar to. Though they spend most, or all of their time in water, they do not have gills. We, too, on land are often navigating contexts that seem impossible for us to breathe in and yet we must. Thank you so much Sheida Yeah, thank you, this was really lovely |
a brook babbles and we form breathe
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Sheida Soleimani. People's Minister of Petroleum, Venezuela, 2017. Archival pigment print 152.4 x 88.9 cm 60 x 35 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
Angel
Yeah, of course. I'd love to continue with a check-in and ask: How are you doing? What are you feeling in this space and time? Sheida Yeah, I'm feeling good. I'm like, this is, I guess this is my first time today I'm getting to decompress a little bit, which is nice. Um, it's been a busy day. You know, that I do the animal rehab, so this morning, probably like 6:30 AM, someone called me bright and early and was convinced that they had what they called a Robin red breast, they're just called American Robins. But Robin that she said, you know, was injured and she brought it to me and that arrived this morning. The Robin's fine, so now I have to go rerelease it. And then when I texted you earlier today someone had called me about a Red-Tailed Hawk that they said they were convinced once again was injured. So I thought, you know what, it's two streets over, I'll drive over and I'll give it a look, and of course the Hawk was fine. It was another one of those moments where I realized that even though people are surrounded by wildlife all the time, they don't make the time and space to actually like get to know what they're living amidst and amongst and get to know the creatures around them. |
a cello and a raven grasped in one hand, and the other running its fingers along the path we take
Lady Amherst Pheasant. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
Angel
I'd also love to talk more about this and about your bird rehab work and just where this all began
Sheida
So I'll kind of make this the shorter version of the story, but my parents are both political refugees. They met in Iran. My dad was working in a hospital training to become a doctor, and my mom was a nurse. Um, they were both politically active. So during the revolution, my father had to escape over the border, eventually made his way to America. My mother wasn't as lucky, so when she went to escape, she was caught at the border and she was imprisoned. Um, and when she was in prison, she was tortured and was in solitary confinement for a year, o when she left and when she finally was able to seek refuge, um, as a political refugee, she had really severe PTSD, and then also not fully learned how to speak English yet. So being in the states, having had a job as a nurse, you know, back in Iran, she wasn't really able to take the boards of the test that she needed to, to be able to practice nursing in America. And I think that was really hard for her. I mean, like she's, she's always been like very strong-willed, independent, like self-you-know-propelled woman and not being able to do her job of, and I think she really enjoys, nurturing and helping people was really hard for her.
So we grew up. I grew up and my parents raised me in Ohio, Southern Ohio on the border of Kentucky, so the Bible belt,of all places, and it was a very inhospitable place to middle Eastern or SWANA region people, especially after 9/11. And my mom, you know, always would find some half-dead animal that got hit in the side of the street in the country, which there's plenty of them. But, we had found these animals and my mom would bring them home and she would take all of her skills as a nurse and, you know, everything she knew about wrapping wounds and splinting things and suturing things to try to fix these wild animals.
And so I grew up around that. I mean, obviously, if you're going to have a lot of animals that are coming in as road kill, the chance of survival is low. But I would say maybe 1 in 10, maybe 2 in 10 would make it, and we would be able to release those animals again. And that was really, really special for me as a kid. She would let me stay home from school the days that we would do bird releases or raccoon releases or whatever. And so, you know, I have always kind of kept that in my back pocket. If anyone ever like in college, I was like the bird girl and people would bring birds to my dorm room or to my apartment room. And I would like take care of them or keep them in my bathroom. And then when I graduated from grad school, I moved to Rhode Island and I started teaching at RISD, and I remember, and I'm sure you know, both the art world and academia are very inhospitable places, especially to people of color and women of color. And I went to therapy for the first time in my life, which I so like, surprised that I waited that long, and my therapist was like, is there anything that you enjoy like doing, that's not art and isn't teaching or that's not work? And, you know, also being from an immigrant family work is like very important because that's like success or like, you know, equateable to success for people that don't, you know, have the easy route of just being able to like be white and like get jobs. Um, so I was like, yeah, I used to rehabilitate animals with my mom and I did it in college and I really liked that. And she's like, okay, maybe you should find that here.
And it was like less than a week I started volunteering at like the local wildlife association. Fast forward seven years, and I'm one of the only people in the whole state that is federally licensed to keep and rehabilitate wild birds and migratory birds, and my basement and my home is a wild animal clinic, so it's like really functioning like a hospital.
So Yeah, that's the long, I guess short, long story.
I'd also love to talk more about this and about your bird rehab work and just where this all began
Sheida
So I'll kind of make this the shorter version of the story, but my parents are both political refugees. They met in Iran. My dad was working in a hospital training to become a doctor, and my mom was a nurse. Um, they were both politically active. So during the revolution, my father had to escape over the border, eventually made his way to America. My mother wasn't as lucky, so when she went to escape, she was caught at the border and she was imprisoned. Um, and when she was in prison, she was tortured and was in solitary confinement for a year, o when she left and when she finally was able to seek refuge, um, as a political refugee, she had really severe PTSD, and then also not fully learned how to speak English yet. So being in the states, having had a job as a nurse, you know, back in Iran, she wasn't really able to take the boards of the test that she needed to, to be able to practice nursing in America. And I think that was really hard for her. I mean, like she's, she's always been like very strong-willed, independent, like self-you-know-propelled woman and not being able to do her job of, and I think she really enjoys, nurturing and helping people was really hard for her.
So we grew up. I grew up and my parents raised me in Ohio, Southern Ohio on the border of Kentucky, so the Bible belt,of all places, and it was a very inhospitable place to middle Eastern or SWANA region people, especially after 9/11. And my mom, you know, always would find some half-dead animal that got hit in the side of the street in the country, which there's plenty of them. But, we had found these animals and my mom would bring them home and she would take all of her skills as a nurse and, you know, everything she knew about wrapping wounds and splinting things and suturing things to try to fix these wild animals.
And so I grew up around that. I mean, obviously, if you're going to have a lot of animals that are coming in as road kill, the chance of survival is low. But I would say maybe 1 in 10, maybe 2 in 10 would make it, and we would be able to release those animals again. And that was really, really special for me as a kid. She would let me stay home from school the days that we would do bird releases or raccoon releases or whatever. And so, you know, I have always kind of kept that in my back pocket. If anyone ever like in college, I was like the bird girl and people would bring birds to my dorm room or to my apartment room. And I would like take care of them or keep them in my bathroom. And then when I graduated from grad school, I moved to Rhode Island and I started teaching at RISD, and I remember, and I'm sure you know, both the art world and academia are very inhospitable places, especially to people of color and women of color. And I went to therapy for the first time in my life, which I so like, surprised that I waited that long, and my therapist was like, is there anything that you enjoy like doing, that's not art and isn't teaching or that's not work? And, you know, also being from an immigrant family work is like very important because that's like success or like, you know, equateable to success for people that don't, you know, have the easy route of just being able to like be white and like get jobs. Um, so I was like, yeah, I used to rehabilitate animals with my mom and I did it in college and I really liked that. And she's like, okay, maybe you should find that here.
And it was like less than a week I started volunteering at like the local wildlife association. Fast forward seven years, and I'm one of the only people in the whole state that is federally licensed to keep and rehabilitate wild birds and migratory birds, and my basement and my home is a wild animal clinic, so it's like really functioning like a hospital.
So Yeah, that's the long, I guess short, long story.
the exhausted individualism of the West and the labor of love
Sheida Soleimani. Minister of Petroleum, UAE & Former President of the United States, 2018. Archival pigment print 152.4 x 101.6 cm 60 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist.
Angel
I want to ask care, going back to that, and about what you've, what have you learned about care for yourself, but also for your loved ones from this rehabilitation work?
Sheida
I think like care is definitely like my love language or like whatever you want to call it. Um, but I also do think it is because I was raised (A) by immigrants and (B) by refugees. Um, I remember being in school and my parents having like, you know, my American friends come over and they'd be like, 'Oh, they don't have, they don't seem to have very like close relationships with their families.'
And I remember I would always be so ashamed because my parents were such a big part of my life that I felt like I shouldn't tell people that, like, I would talk to my parents about my feelings cause, like, it felt like that wasn't normal. My parents, I mean, my parents trusted me and told me about what happened to them at a very young age and they have some pretty horrifying stories. And so for them to communicate that to me, you know, they needed to be taken care of, and even though I was four or five years old, I was totally able to listen. And then when I got older, I learned that the relationship also evolved and that I could also bring things to the table and they would be there for me and we could talk about it. But I also started thinking about the failures of governments to care for their people and how that happened to my parents.
And I think that's how I really started to think about care is like finding family, whether it be chosen or biological. Thinking about what different ways of caretaking are and how that caretaking also nurtures me. Um, it makes me feel, like I'm doing something that's worthwhile when I am able to provide care in some way to either a person, but I think more specifically in my life with animals. I mean I being an artist. I love being a professor, but neither of those things makes me feel as good as when I get an injured animal. It's tangible.
I want to ask care, going back to that, and about what you've, what have you learned about care for yourself, but also for your loved ones from this rehabilitation work?
Sheida
I think like care is definitely like my love language or like whatever you want to call it. Um, but I also do think it is because I was raised (A) by immigrants and (B) by refugees. Um, I remember being in school and my parents having like, you know, my American friends come over and they'd be like, 'Oh, they don't have, they don't seem to have very like close relationships with their families.'
And I remember I would always be so ashamed because my parents were such a big part of my life that I felt like I shouldn't tell people that, like, I would talk to my parents about my feelings cause, like, it felt like that wasn't normal. My parents, I mean, my parents trusted me and told me about what happened to them at a very young age and they have some pretty horrifying stories. And so for them to communicate that to me, you know, they needed to be taken care of, and even though I was four or five years old, I was totally able to listen. And then when I got older, I learned that the relationship also evolved and that I could also bring things to the table and they would be there for me and we could talk about it. But I also started thinking about the failures of governments to care for their people and how that happened to my parents.
And I think that's how I really started to think about care is like finding family, whether it be chosen or biological. Thinking about what different ways of caretaking are and how that caretaking also nurtures me. Um, it makes me feel, like I'm doing something that's worthwhile when I am able to provide care in some way to either a person, but I think more specifically in my life with animals. I mean I being an artist. I love being a professor, but neither of those things makes me feel as good as when I get an injured animal. It's tangible.
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a tune, a lesson, a struggle, a stance
Golden Crowned Kinglet with Sheida. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
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Angel
Care is the word after all, especially in moments where institutions be it artistic or academic, stabilize themselves based off the expropriation of labor. So, I want to ask, how do you care for yourself in the midst of these institutions? Sheida It's been hard and I've learned the hard way. I remember the first few years I felt like I was so lucky to have a curator even look at my work and it felt like I was supposed to do anything to please them. And I soon learned that institutions and curators have directors that they have to answer to, and those directors have to answer to a board and the money that comes from the board it's what really makes the decisions. And when I started seeing like these kinds of like micro-things, maybe micro-aggressions that wouldn't be happening immediately on the surface, but you dig a little deeper and you're like, Oh, why aren't they including either this piece or this sentence? And so in my eyes, I find that as a sense of censorship, I mean, they're private organization, so they have the ability to do that. But I'm not really interested in my work being just for the elite. So I think lately for me, it's, um, actually a recent example is that for the work that I am working on I'm thinking about the United nations podium as a global stage and one where individuals are supposed to, or politicians are supposed to have this like egalitarian way of addressing people. But you see the lack of discussions that are coming up as well as the visibility of specific politicians. So I was looking at Yasser Arafat at the United nations, but he had to speak at the United nations in Geneva because the US wouldn't grant him a visa to come speak at the United Nations in New York because they were pressured by Israel to not let him in because he's Palestinian. That's the only time that Palestine has had any type of seat at the UN and I was, I'm remaking an image of Arafat at the UN podium. I've um hired a body language coach to talk about politicians, body languages, and how we're thinking about phrenology and physiognomy and how like we racially like read bodies and like assume that they're going to be acting or behaving a certain way, but I've also hired a living sculpture. So he's actually becoming this monument that's remaking these poses that are happening from these photographs. So we had our living sculpture pose as Arafat at the United nations and remade that photo. |
Photograph of Yasser Arafat. 1974. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
With support from imperialist and colonialist Powers, the Zionist entity managed to get itself accepted as a Member of the United Nations. It further succeeded in getting the Palestine question deleted from the agenda of the United Nations and in deceiving world public opinion by presenting our cause as a problem of refugees in need either of charity from do-gooders, or settlement in a land not theirs.
Not satisfied with all this, the racist entity, founded on the imperialist-colonialist concept, turned itself into a base of imperialism and into an arsenal of weapons. This enabled it to assume its role of subjugating the Arab people and of committing aggression against them, in order to satisfy its ambitions for further expansion on Palestinian and other Arab lands. In addition to the many instances of aggression committed by this entity against the Arab States, it has launched two large-scale wars, in 1956 and 1967, thus endangering world peace and security.
- Yasser Arafat, former Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian National Authority
Sheida
And in the photo at the UN, Arafat's wearing a keffiyeh. You know, black and white keffiyeh, which is the traditional headscarf of Palestine, and I had a curator I was working with that, saw that and was like, "Oh, do you think you can try making it with just a plain white scarf? Instead of having the keffiyeh. Like, don't you think that's too much of a link and maybe you shouldn't be like talking about Palestinians."
And then I was like, "Thats the point of the work." So, you know, that's where I don't make concessions. I'm making the work. I have interest in this work because of this topic, and if I want to have a politic in the work that I'm making, I'm absolutely gonna make it.
If someone's flattening, what's actually happening: Where's the message going? Who is it for?
And in the photo at the UN, Arafat's wearing a keffiyeh. You know, black and white keffiyeh, which is the traditional headscarf of Palestine, and I had a curator I was working with that, saw that and was like, "Oh, do you think you can try making it with just a plain white scarf? Instead of having the keffiyeh. Like, don't you think that's too much of a link and maybe you shouldn't be like talking about Palestinians."
And then I was like, "Thats the point of the work." So, you know, that's where I don't make concessions. I'm making the work. I have interest in this work because of this topic, and if I want to have a politic in the work that I'm making, I'm absolutely gonna make it.
If someone's flattening, what's actually happening: Where's the message going? Who is it for?
and the calls of starlings reminds us of worn out liberal politic
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Sheida Soleimani. Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum, Angola & Former Secretary of State, United States, 2017. Archival pigment print 152.4 x 101.6 cm 60 x 40 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
Angel
I want to ask you, you know, what conversations are you tired of having? Sheida Oh, my god. I'm so tired at all of those like I think reckoning repair conversations, because I don't believe, I wish that I could believe in change, um, and I do believe in some types of change, but I am tired of people asking me what I would like to see in the world, because I know that they don't actually want to make the commitment to making that happen. And the people that do have the power and the commitment, obviously have no interest in making it happen because the things that I would like to see change are top-down, like the capitalist economy is not going to help people of color, people that are like marginalized have any type of upwards mobility. And so what type of society are we living in when there's this constant lack of access to things just like education. That should be something that is good. You shouldn't have to go to a private school and spend, like, boohoo fucking money. I see these people that are able to have access to all of these things because they have, you know, money and I think that's what makes me the most angry is that there is such a lack of ability for people to have that same potential just because they're not in the same income class. Most people just ask the questions and then they say to themselves, Oh yeah, I should get involved in that. And then they don't. And instead of thinking about it, they have a fucking committee that's called a DEI committee and they're like, And now we have a committee that talks about diversity, equity and inclusion And they don't actually do anything. Ways to Support Sheida Soleimani's Work & Critter Friends
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Sheida Soleimani's Latest Works On View
Sheida Soleimani's Work in Upcoming Exhibitions
Sheida Soleimani. Reyhaneh, 2016. Archival pigment print 101.6 x 68.6 cm 40 x 27 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
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Credits and LinksAlexis Pauline Gumbs. Selections. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals
Silvia Cusicanqui & Veronica Gago. Selections. Ch'ixinakax utxiwa: On Practices and Discourses of Decolonization la paperson. Introduction. A Third University is Possible Neetu Khana. Selections. The Visceral Logics of Decolonization Matthew Biro (2019) Sheida Soleimani, Cyborg: Photomontage in an Expanding Network, History of Photography, 43:2, 169-190, DOI: 10.1080/03087298.2019.1668613 Sheida Soleimani. Trapping Season, 2017. Archival pigment print 61 x 45.7 cm 24 x 20 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. American Robin with Sheida. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani Sheida Soleimani. People's Minister of Petroleum, Venezuela, 2017. Archival pigment print 152.4 x 88.9 cm 60 x 35 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. Lady Amherst Pheasant. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. Sheida Soleimani. Minister of Petroleum, UAE & Former President of the United States, 2018. Archival pigment print 152.4 x 101.6 cm 60 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist. Golden Crowned Kinglet with Sheida. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. Photograph of Yasser Arafat. 1974. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Sheida Soleimani. Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum, Angola & Former Secretary of State, United States, 2017. Archival pigment print 152.4 x 101.6 cm 60 x 40 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. Sheida Soleimani. Reyhaneh, 2016. Archival pigment print 101.6 x 68.6 cm 40 x 27 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. Sheida Soleimani. Raheleh, 2016. Archival pigment print 101.6 x 68.6 cm 40 x 27 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani. |
Sheida Soleimani. Raheleh, 2016. Archival pigment print 101.6 x 68.6 cm 40 x 27 in. Courtesy of Sheida Soleimani.
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Credits and LinksAlexis Pauline Gumbs. Selections. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals
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