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Sheida Soleimani

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GDP (Iceland), 1. Archival pigment print, 24 x 18 inches, 2021.
GDP (Iceland), 2. Archival pigment print, 24 x 18 inches/2021.

Photos of installation by Vigfús Birgisson.

Photos of installation by Vigfús Birgisson.

Lesa á íslensku

During her research in Iceland Sheida, familiarized herself with the fossil fuel peat, mentioned as a fuel source in Travels in Iceland. Peat has been called the forgotten fossil fuel, partially decomposed plant material, essentially coal in the making. Other sources of natural energy where as well investigated and sensed by Sheida during her research p

Sheida Soleimani’s practice refuses the history of photography as an unethical medium for amplifying the enlightenment gaze—especially in its chauvinistic, ethnographic, biopolitical, and colonial variations. This array of visual modalities supports western state power by depicting ethnic and racialized population as less human, less rational, and confined to bodily necessities; making these a priori assumptions appear as if they are founded on objective knowledge of the world; and weaponizing these representations to justify why these populations and their lands “need” to be under western control. For her contribution to IMMUNE, Soleimani critically intervenes in this ongoing history of dispossession by interrogating three centuries of fuel consumption in Iceland. Her photographs reveal how the Danish colonial text, Travels in Iceland, is riven by an economic interest in devising new fuel sources and an ethnographic fascination with the dehumanizing effects of vernacular sources that arose in an already deforested Iceland. In her own travels, Soleimani learned how to harvest peat from a peat grave, examined old and new alternative fuel sources like bird burning, mixing seaweed with fish, and deriving fuel from lupine, and traversed the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric dam, the main source of Iceland’s “green” energy, as well as the driver of an ongoing ecocatastrophe for the plants and animals that once inhabited this area, which was formerly the second largest unspoiled wilderness in Europe.

Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) 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 in- 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. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, Soleimani is also an assistant professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University and a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator. 

Immune / Ónæm

Sheida Soleimani

​​Í verkum sínum afneitar Sheida Soleimani ljósmyndun og ósiðferðislegri sögu miðilsins, sem notaður var í þeim tilgangi að magna upp starandi augnaráð upplýsingarinnar – þá sérstaklega í tilgangi þjóðarrembings, þjóðfræði, líffræðipólitíkur og nýlenduvæðingar. Slík framsetning sjónræns efnis, styður vestrænt ríkisvald með því að lýsa þjóðarbrotum og þeim þjóðum sem mismunað er vegna kynþáttar, sem síður mennskum, vitsmunalegum eða líkt og þær einskorðist aðeins við líkamlegar þarfir; þessar forsendur án athugunar eru látnar líta út fyrir að byggja á hlutlausri þekkingu á heiminum; og þjóðirnar eru vopnavæddar svo réttlæta megi undirokun þeirra undir vestræna stjórn.

 Fyrir verk sitt í ÓNÆM, grípur Soleimani inn í þessa viðvarandi sögu eignasviptingu, á gagnrýnin hátt, með því að kafa ofan notkun eldsneytis á Íslandi síðustu þrjár aldirnar. Ljósmyndir hennar afhjúpa hvernig danski nýlendutextinn í Ferðabók Eggerts og Bjarna, er klofinn í efnahagslegan áhuga á sköpun nýrra orkulinda og þjóðfræðilega áherslu á að sveipa ómennskum blæ yfir hefðbundnar orkulindir í þegar skógi eyddu Íslandi. Á eigin ferðum, lærði Soleimani hvernig skuli grafa upp mó, ásamt því að rannsaka aðra eldri og nýrri orkugjafa líkt og brennslu fugla eða blöndun sjávargróðurs við fiskúrgang og hvernig breyta megi lúpínum í orkugjafa. Hún ferðaðist yfir vatnsaflsstífluna við Kárahnjúka, aðal uppsprettu „grænnar orku“ á Íslandi en einnig það sem stuðlar að áframhaldandi vistfræðilegum hamförum þess gróðurs og dýralífs sem eitt sinn byggði landsvæðið, sem áður fyrr var næststærsta ósnerta náttúrusvæði Evrópu.