Sheida Soleimani: Hotbed
Speaking truth to the crises that define relations between Iran and the United States, Soleimani superimposes source imagery onto sculptural backdrops to reflect and critique hot-button issues such as demands for reparations, sanctions on trade and resources, and the “crude” history of the petroleum industry. The self-titled Hotbed (2020), one of the exhibition’s most evocative works, comments on Iran’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic by freezing the arm of the country’s deputy health minister in the physically uncomfortable act of wiping his brow. Flypapered in the background are satellite images of mass graves dug for the pandemic dead, while lime, which is used to dissolve flesh, dusts grass and soil.