Born 1990 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Sheida Soleimani was born to political refugees who fled Iran in the mid-1980s. As an Iranian American, she builds photographic tableaux that dramatize Middle Eastern geopolitics, satirizing the reporting of West and East alike. Her photographs often source imagery from popular media and adapt them to exist within alternative scenarios, including photographs, moving image, sculpture, and theatre. Like propaganda posters and art forms that emerge in times of crisis (Dada, Relational Aesthetics, Identity Politics), her works chronicle oral histories to portray events that have been shrouded by Western reportage, situating her practice and discourse not only in art, but also in political activism.

Sheida Soleimani received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and her BFA from the University of Cincinnati, College of Art. Soleimani’s most recent solo exhibitions were at Harlan Levey Projects in Brussels, Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago and the evolving exhibition Medium of Exchange that examined how oil is interchangeable with currency and the corruption at the center of the petroleum industry. Medium of Exchange traveled to six different locations from Edel Assanti in London to the Atlanta Contemporary, in Atlanta, GA. Soleimani is represented by Edel Assanti in London, as well as Harlan Levey Projects in Brussels. Soleimani has been written about in The New York Times, Artforum, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, among many others including BEAUTIFUL/DECAY founded by artist, Amir H. Fallah. She currently is an Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.