Events + News

Photography from the Middle East: A Window into Time and Place
Feb 22, 2021 – 12:30 Eastern Standard Time | Intersect 2021 Art Fair
Moderator: Sueraya Shaheen. Panelists: Sama Alshaibi, Steve Sabella, M’hammed Kilito, Heba Farid and Zain Khalifa.

Intersect 21 presents a selection of galleries and programming from Southern California, the Middle East, and North Africa. The Fair explores the similarities and differences in contemporary art, design, and photography fields with a focus on art and place.

Watch the previously recorded event here


Artist Talk: Sama Alshaibi and Rania Matar
February 3 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm EST | Griffin Museum of Photography

Rania Matar and Sama Alshaibi’s talk features the two artists discussing common and diverging themes in their respective photographic practices. Drawing on the duality of their own identities, both hailing from the Middle East and now living in the United States, their photographs intimately engage the complexity of Arab women’s representations through images. Their work explores the lives and experiences of women through various layers of identity, social and political codes.

Click for more info (session has passed)

The Democracy Project: 2020
Virtual Exhibition for Artillery Magazine
Curated by Antoine Girard and Lawrence Gipe | Sept/Oct Issue | 2020

“The Democracy Project: 2020” manifests the great, besieged “project of Democracy” as an online exhibition for Artillery’s September/October issue, featuring recent work by a diverse selection of the West Coast’s most compelling artists. Whether approaching the theme ironically, or with reverence (or a bit of both), the artists below are chosen for their political engagement, provocative content, and significant contributions to the diversity of the art world.

ARTISTS: Kim Abeles, Sama Alshaibi, Aaron Coleman, Eileen Cowin, Asad Faulwell, Corey Grayhorse, Mark Steven Greenfield, Salim Green, Ken Gonzales-Day, Alexander Kritselis, Ann Le, Alejandro Macias, Renée Petropoulos, Mike Reesé, Miles Regis, Julio M. Romero, Stephanie Syjuco, Meital Yaniv.

Click here to view project/exhibition

Sama Alshaibi selected for 100 Years | 100 Women project and exhibited in the "Women Creating Nouns, Not Adjectives: Votes for Women" NYU commission exhibition
Exhibition curator: Dr. Deborah Willis

In preparation for the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, Park Avenue Armory, with lead partner National Black Theatre, and nine other multi-disciplinary cultural institutions across New York City, created the 100 Years | 100 Women initiative. Collectively the partners nominated 100 artists, activists, scholars, students, and community leaders to respond to the centennial and its complex legacy. Sama Alshaibi was selected by Deborah Willis and Ellyn Toscano (Tisch School of the Arts, NYU); along with other artists, Alshaibi was commissioned to make a new work for the exhibition/project. "Adjudicating the Jezebel" - Alshaibi's contribution is a mixed-media textile wall hanging. Printed and stitched onto the linen fabric are embroidery patterns, historic political posters, her own photographs, and an image of Michigan’s Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s in her Palestinian embroidered thobe (tunic), worn to her 2019 swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. House of Representatives.

Click here to learn more about Sama Alshaibi's participation.
Click here to visit the project archive.
Click here to visit the NYU online exhibition.

Sama Alshaibi at Florida Museum of Photographic Arts
Reframed
September 2020 – December 2020 | FMOPA | Tampa, FL

In celebration of 100 years of women’s right to vote, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts will display the group exhibition Reframed from September 2020 until December 2020. Reframed exhibits four internationally renowned photographers who analyze the representation of women and female stereotypes in media, culture, and science. By re-photographing, re-framing, and re-assessing common imagery and ideas of femininity in a male-orientated world, these artists provide an inside look through the female lens of underlying female stereotypes and prejudices.

Sama Alshaibi questions the impact of unequal power relations between the West and the Middle East and how that domination is captured and documented in photographs. For this project (Carry Over), she created self-portraits by using traditional printing processes. The series recalls and subverts historical Orientalist portraits through a feminist and post-colonial lens. Exhibiting artists include Astrid Jahnsen, Ina Jang, Endia Beal and Sama Alshaibi.

Click here for more information on the exhibition.

Women in Photography: In Front of and Behind the Camera
Artists Talks at FMoPA
October 23, 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm (Eastern Time) | Florida Museum of Photographic Arts | virtual event

For the upcoming panel discussion, FMoPA invited the photographers from their current Reframed exhibition to discuss the challenges they face as female photographers in the profession. Sama Alshaibi and the other artists will also share how this influences their work and how they can overcome the biases of being a woman in a male-dominated profession.

For more information, click here (this event has passed)

"New Paradigms that Celebrate Achievement and Diversity, Round Table discussion with Rebecca Senf, Fatemeh Baigmoradi, and Sama Alshaibi "
FRIDAY OCTOBER 23, 2020 – 10:45 am (Pacific Time) | Medium Summit | Medium Photo

The 2020 Medium Summit is a virtual convening of photographers and curators discussing the field of contemporary photography during the COVID-19 pandemic. Held over three days, the Summit is as a platform for round table discussions and community dialog to promote open conversation and actionable practices in photography beyond 2020. Summit registration includes access to four round table discussions, targeted break-out sessions, a public lecture by Rebecca Senf, and a discussion of a remarkable collection of vernacular photographs recently acquired by the MFA Houston.

Round table discussions are open to summit guests only, with a maximum of 40 participants.
Click here for more info on the Medium Summit.

Sama Alshaibi's "The Cessation" featured in Hyperallergic
"An Artist Revives a Story From One Thousand and One Nights for Contemporary Times" by Angie Rizzo

Elements from "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" come together to comment on current sociopolitical realities in Sama Alshaibi’s sculptural installation “The Cessation," at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Click here to read article

Sama Alshaibi at Art Woman 2020 – GEO-GRAPHIES: Identity Rituals and Fragile Ecosystems
Curator: Dores Sacquegna
March 7, 2020 - March 21, 2020 | Palmieri’s Foundation | Lecce, Italy

Sama Alshaibi’s videos Baraka, Wasl, and Al Tariqah from her Silsila project will be exhibited during Art Woman 2020 “GEO-GRAPHIES: Identity Rituals and Fragile Ecosystems”. The show is under cultural patronage of Lecce’s Municipality and it is set up at the Renaissance church of San Sebastien, place of Palmieri Foundation in the old city. This exhibition it is a dialogue between cultures, which, specifically on World Women's Day, wants to reflect on the contemporary world, on environmental issues, on women's rights and on the dynamics of non-acceptance towards human and cultural diversity. Geo (earth) and Grafia (writing), is the writing of the earth, and through art - a powerful tool at the service of society, the environment and life - the artists on display, express their point of view on the world and on the relationship with others. San Sebastiano, a welcoming place from the past, confronts these new geographies, evoking its history between echoes and references, between discoveries and listening. Catalog on display. Curated by Dores Sacquegna and promoted by Primo Piano LivinGallery.

Click here for more information about the exhibition and related events

Sama Alshaibi selected for "State of the Art 2020"
Curator: Lauren Haynes; Assistant Curator Alejo Benedetti; Associate Curator Allison Glenn
22 February - 24 May 2020 | Crystal Bridges Museum and the Momentary | Bentonville, AR

Sama Alshaibi is one of 60 artists selected for the State of the Art 2020 opening at the Momentary and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Lauren Haynes, curator of visual arts at the Momentary and curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges, is leading State of the Art 2020, along with Alejo Benedetti, assistant curator of contemporary art, Crystal Bridges and Allison Glenn, associate curator of contemporary art, Crystal Bridges. The team visited studios across the country, resulting in the selection of a diverse group of 60 artists, from varied backgrounds and at different points in their careers.

More than 100 artworks will be featured in State of the Art 2020-- most created in the last three years. At both the Momentary and Crystal Bridges, artwork will include paintings, sculpture, photography, video, performance, and mixed media. “State of the Art 2020 fits our vision for the Momentary and builds on some of what we’ve already done at Crystal Bridges--presenting contemporary artists who are making work that raise topics and important questions about this moment in time,” said Haynes. “As we traveled the US talking with artists, connections between their work and ideas began to emerge, which drove the selection of themes.”

The 60 individuals in State of the Art 2020 represent a cross-section of artists working today and their artwork will be organized into thematic sections, including world-building: creating real and fictional spaces; a sense of place: investigating ideas of home, family, immigration, and more; mapping: connections to and relationships with landscapes and power, and temporality: the concept of time and how we perceive it. State of the Art 2020 is the continuation of an exploration into contemporary art that began in 2014, when Crystal Bridges presented State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now. More than 175,000 visitors experienced the exhibition. Haynes adds, “Similar to the first State of the Art...the exhibition will travel and we are currently building the national tour, with dates and venues to be announced later. In addition, we’re excited to commit to the next State of the Art in 2025 and plan to create a new exhibition every five years.”

As part of opening the new contemporary art space, the Momentary, the exhibition will be on view at the Momentary and Crystal Bridges from February 22 through May 24, 2020, free for all visitors. Sama Alshaibi's newest installation, "The Cessation" (2019), will be installed at State of the Art 2020. The installation was originally commissioned by Artpace, San Antonio.

Click here for more information on State of the Art 2020
Click here to view the exhibition virtually

"Sama Alshaibi: Staging the Imagined" – solo exhibition at Ayyam Gallery
18 September - 13 November 2019 | Dubai | UAE

Sama Alshaibi’s newest body of work from her solo exhibition Staging the Imagined reflects the relationships of power and authority between photographer and subject. The work investigates how a particular historical period can alter viewers’ interpretations of photographs. Through various projects, Alshaibi reframes historical photographs and moving images that, according to Grace Aneiza Ali, “reference a grave historic malpractice—the role of photography, both colonial and contemporary, in reducing the body, the life, the desires, the experiences, the hopes, and dreams, indeed the very existence, of the Middle Eastern woman to a dangerous single story—one rooted in the primitive and in fear, fantasy, inferiority, and objectification.”

Sama Alshaibi’s Staging the Imagined is an implicit critique of the social exploitation generated over a century of images of Middle Eastern women while disrupting the paradigm through a strategy of assigning power through the female body and narration of her stage. The solo exhibition includes albumen prints, photogravures, digital prints, sculptures, video and archival materials.

Selection of quoted text from exhibition catalogue: Women’s Work: Art & Activism in the 21st Century, curated and authored by Grace Aneiza Ali (Pen + Brush Gallery, NYC, NY, 2019)
Generation after Generation was commissioned by Artpace International Artist Residency.
Carry Over was partly supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Arizona Commission of the Arts, the Project Development 1st Prize Award from The Center at Santa Fe, University of Arizona and Artpace International Artist Residency.

Click here for more information

Sama Alshaibi solo exhibition at Artpace
Until Total Liberation
Curated by Dr. Deborah Willis
21 March - 12 May 2019 | Artpace | San Antonio, TX

Sama Alshaibi’s solo exhibition Until Total Liberation is on view at Artpace San Antonio, USA till 12 May 2019. The body of work exhibited in this show was developed during her two-month Artist-in-Residence program with Artpace and circulates around the presentation and representation of Middle Eastern and North African women from the historical Western perspective.

Artist exhibition statement: Until Total Liberation” is an often-used slogan in Palestinian revolutionary politics and is seen in a number of Palestinian Liberation Organization posters. Over the last 100 years or so, Middle Eastern women in photography, postcards, newsreel cinema, and other images perpetuate the idea of a very singular struggle with patriarchal oppression. These representations and their narrow focus in no way address the complexity and diversity of the Middle Eastern experience, let alone the female experience. Middle Eastern women do not merely bear the burden of representation, but also actively and currently, struggle with access, security, displacement, socio-economic mobility, and very simply, human rights. The title enforces that until, as a people, we are afforded the same human rights as our Western counterparts, we will never truly, and fully, be liberated. It also provides an intersectional moment in its reference to universal women’s experiences in general.
Photo credit Seale Photography Studios

Click here for more information about the solo exhibition



Sama Alshaibi at Pen + Brush
Women's Work: Art & Activism in the 21st Century
Curated by Grace Aneiza Ali
10 April 10 - 02 August, 2019 | Pen + Brush | New York City, NY

Women’s Work takes as a point of anti-departure, Oxford Dictionary’s definition of women’s work as “traditionally and historically undertaken by women, especially tasks of a domestic nature such as cooking, needlework, and child rearing.” Despite the last century of groundbreaking, audacious change and catalysts, the dictionary still has not caught up with the current zeitgeist. Neither a dismissal nor a trivializing of this definition, the exhibition is grounded in the belief that all women’s work, within the realm of the domestic and beyond, is valuable. However, it acknowledges that the definition has rightly evolved, and must continue to do so, across centuries and geographies.

Women’s Work presents five global contemporary artists-activists who continue to expand the definition of women’s work and expose its complexity, nuance, and ever-evolving nature. Through dynamic art practices, they generously lend their intelligence, thoughtfulness, artistry, and agency to reimagine women’s work as art activism in the 21st century. For Sama Alshaibi, that work is to re-visualize the historical and contemporary image of the Middle Eastern woman.

Featured artists include Sama Alshaibi, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Miora Rajaonary, Suchitra Mattai, and Ming Smith. Collectively, these artists remind us that women’s work is rooted in activism, justice, healing, service, and resistance. Women’s Work is a provocation for us all—to reclaim the term and to make space for its reinventions and future possibilities. (excerpt from exhibition statement found on Pen + Brush website).

Click here for more information about the exhibition



Sama Alshaibi was selected by Curator Dr. Deborah Willis as the recipient of the Spring 2019 International Artist-in-Residence program at Artpace
Jan 20 - March 20, 2019 | Artpace | San Antonio, Texas

Three times a year, Artpace invites a guest curator to choose three artists to live and create art in San Antonio for two months, supported by a $10,000 project fund, apartment, studio, facilities, and a living stipend. Each residency cycle includes one international, one national, and one Texas-based artist. Sama Alshaibi was chosen as the national artist and will be in residence till 25 March with the goal of producing a new series of photographs, a video, and sculpture installation. The mission of the program is to provide artists with unparalleled resources that enable them to experiment with new ideas, take provocative risks, and realize innovative and ambitious new work. Alshaibi's body of work created during the residency program will be curated by Deborah Willis and exhibited as a solo exhibition from 21 March - 12 May 2019 at Artpace

Click here for more information about the residency



Sama Alshaibi at American University Museum at the Katzen
Tribe: Contemporary Photography from the Arab World
November 10 - December 16, 2018 | Washington D.C.

"Tribe: Contemporary Photography from the Arab World" is an exhibition curated by Janet Bellotto and Dr. Woodman Taylor. Highlighting a selection of artists published within the eight editions of Tribe—a magazine founded in Dubai that is dedicated to covering developments in photography and new media from the Arab World, the exhibition contextualizes an expansive field of image-based work through various themes, while celebrating artists both internationally acclaimed as well as those whose practices have recently been recognized. At times artists poetically deploy hues, shadows and partial images to nuance aspects of Arab culture. By expanding our appreciation and understanding of the variety of photographic practices creatively deployed by artists from throughout the Arab World, through its publications and first exhibition, Tribe aims to place these accomplished artists on a global stage within the larger sphere of contemporary photography.

Sama Alshaibi will be exhibiting works from Silsila. Artists include Adel Al-Quraishi; Afra Bin Dhaher; Ajlan Gharem; Alaa Edris; Alia Ali; Al Fadhil; Al-Moutasim Al-Maskery; Amani Al Shaali; Amina Benbouchta; Ammar Al Attar; Arwa Abouon; Arwa Alneami; Bashar Alhroub; Camille Zakharia; Ebtisam Abdulaziz; Farah Salem; Filwa Nazer; Ghada Khunji; Hassan Hajjaj; Hassan Meer; Hazem Mahdy; Heba Amin; Ibi Ibrahim; Jalal Bin Thaneya; Jamelie Hassan; Jassim Al Awadhi; Joanna Barakat; Khaled Akil; Khaled Hafez; Lamya Gargash; Lara Atallah; Leila Alaoui; Maha Al Asaker; Mai Almoataz; Maitha Demithan; Manal AlDowayan; Mohammed Al Kouh; Mohammed Al Shammarey; Mustapha Azeroual; Nermine Hammam; Nora Alissa; Osama Esid; Rula Halawani; Sadik Kwaish Alfraji; Sama Alshaibi; Sara Naim; Shaikha Al Ketbi; Steve Sabella; Sultan Bin Fahad; Tammam Azzam; Tarek Al-Ghoussein; Toufic Beyhum; Wafaa Bilal; Yazan Khalili and Ziad Antar.

Click here for more information about the Tribe exhibition



Sama Alshaibi receives a $10,000 ‘Faculty Seed Grant’ from the University of Arizona’s Office of Research, Discovery & Innovation
This competitive grant aims to “jump-start” projects seeking extramural funding while providing feedback to strengthen their success. The funding is for her new project, "Unlawful Present" in which Alshaibi will be exploring issues of invisibility, social inequities, and survival.

Sama Alshaibi receives two artist grants for the forthcoming project “Carry Over”
2017 Visual Arts AFAC Grant - Arab Fund for Arts and Culture
2018 Artist Research and Development Grant – Arizona Commission on the Arts

Sama Alshaibi has been awarded two production grants for her forthcoming project “Carry Over”, a multimedia series that, according to the artist, “recalls, decodes, and subverts familiar images while questioning their ability to inform nuanced understanding of complex identities.”

Combining photography, sculpture, and installation, Carry Over emphasizes the sociopolitical challenges that women from the Middle East and North Africa face and the problematic role that photography has had in perpetuating a gendered misrepresentation of the region. At the center of the project are staged photographic portraits that aim to resist superficial analysis that reduces Middle Eastern women’s rights and opportunities to what they wear and affixing them to assumed subordinate positions in the imagination of others.

Click here for the 2017 Grantees page on the AFAC website
Click here for the 2018 announcement from the Arizona Commission on the Arts



Sama Alshaibi at BredaPhoto Festival
5 September – 21 October 2018 | Breda, Netherlands

BredaPhoto is a biannual international photo festival in Breda, in the Netherlands, and the 2018 festival is its 8th edition. A number of international photographers will exhibit their work outdoors and in art centers in the city. BredaPhoto shows the state of the art of contemporary photography based on an internationally relevant social theme. The 2018 title of the festival will be TO INFINITY AND BEYOND.

BredaPhoto wants to know more about the possibilities and impact of ongoing progress in technology and science. Will it bring nothing but progress? Or are we at risk of opening Pandora’s box full of unwelcome surprises? Photography is a unique medium to visualize how technology and science are fundamentally changing the world around us.

Click here for more information on the 2018 BredaPhoto Festival



Sama Alshaibi selected for the Arizona Biennial 2018
5 July - 16 September 2018

Sama Alshaibi will be part of the Arizona Biennial 2018, contributing two of her photographs titled Obverse Discursive, 2016 and Arabic and Cuneiform: To Read and Write, 2016 that highlight her ongoing research of conflict and the power struggles that arise in the aftermath of war and exile. This year’s Arizona Biennial is hosted at the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block, curated by guest juror Rebecca R. Hart from the Denver Art Museum.

Click here for more information about the Arizona Biennial 2018



Sama Alshaibi at Ayyam Gallery
You + topia: Summer Collective Exhibition
12 May - 10 September 2018 | Dubai, UAE

you + topia touches on the cultural, social, and geopolitical problems of contemporary Middle-Eastern artists. These artists use art as a battleground to reflect on anxiety and optimism while offering a place of resistance in a climate where we co-exist between war and terror. In order to maintain identity within the ever-changing landscape between real and ideal, the artists depict their true tones through images of collapsing worlds and places of tension. In the meanwhile, the desire and expectations of a true ‘utopia’ reside on the borderline; a place of obstruction.

Featured in this exhibition are works by the artists Samia Halaby, Ginane Makki Bacho, Nadim Karam, Sadik Alfraji, Safwan Dahoul, Rula Halawani, Shurooq Amin, Thaier Helal, Farzad Kohan, Abdul-Karim Majdal al-Beik, Sama Alshaibi, Afshin Pirhashemi, Mouteea Murad, Ousama Diab, Tammam Azzam, and Athier.

Click here for more information on this exhibition at Ayyam Gallery, DIFC



Sama Alshaibi at Beirut Spring Festival
15 May – 7 June 2018 | Beirut, Lebanon

Sama Alshaibi is participating in the Beirut Spring Festival in Lebanon. Organized annually by the Samir Kassir Foundation, created in tribute to the journalist assassinated in 2005 for his writing in favor of independence, civil action, and freedom. The program will feature international and multidisciplinary shows, across multiple venues, and free of charge.

Click here for more info on the Beirut Spring Festival



Image Maker Speaker – Sama Alshaibi: “Ever Farther”
The 55th SPE National Conference "Uncertain Times: Borders, Refuge, Community, Nationhood”
hosted by The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Saturday, March 03, 2018 @ 1:00pm, Grand Ballroom Salon H, Philadelphia Marriott Downtown

Society for Photographic Education (SPE) 55th Annual Conference, Uncertain Times, will address questions of globalization, migration, territory, refuge, community, identity, nationalism, and internationalism, and will evaluate the contribution of photographic practices seeking to humanize and reveal these topics. The conference will focus on the ways in which photographic media are implicated in demonstrating both moments of crisis as well as moments of resolve.

Alshaibi's talk will focus on "Silsila", her seven-year project probing the human dimensions of migration, borders, and environmental demise in the Middle East and North Africa. "Silsila" debuted at the 55th Venice Biennial and is the subject of her monograph published by Aperture.

Click here for information on the SPE conference



Sama Alshaibi at Zeytinbur International Photography Festival (Z FotoFest)
19 January – 4 February 2018 | Istanbul, Turkey

Sama Alshaibi is participating in Zeytinburnu International Photography Festival (Z FotoFest) in Istanbul, Turkey. Organized by Zeytinburnu Municipality, Z FotoFest is a nonprofit organization that attempts to inspire and bring together photographers from different fields and to expand the limits of photographic narration. Through this edition’s theme, Oxygen, the festival aims to strengthen already existing public awareness on environmental issues through photography and film – exploring concepts of ecological collapse, perishing nature, industrial waste, human helplessness at facing wars, and destruction caused by immigration and urbanization. On show will be artworks from Sama Alshaibi’s Silsila series.

The festival will host artist talks, workshops, portfolio reviews, and film screenings alongside the exhibition. Sama Alshaibi and artists Tammam Azzam and Rula Halawani will take part in a panel discussion with the curator of the festival Ozan Bilgiseren and Z FotoFest Artistic Director Murat Gul on 20 January. Alshaibi will also conduct a portfolio review for photography enthusiasts on 23 January.

Click here for more information on the 2018 Z FotoFest



Sama Alshaibi at the Tucson Museum of Art
Dress Matters: Clothing as Metaphor
21 October 2017 - 18 February 2018 | Arizona, USA

"Dress Matters: Clothing as Metaphor" is a group exhibition that examines clothing in art as symbols of power and identity. At once functional and aesthetic, garments are worn to protect the body from the elements, enhance the beauty of the wearer, establish rank in society, and signal to others our differences or similarities. Garments also point to interpersonal issues and conditions as well as larger societal and cultural concerns. Works in this exhibition reveal how artists use concepts and images of clothing to relay compelling messages about gender, age, ethnicity, history, profession and the world around us in general. The exhibition is accompanied by a 64-page catalog, produced for the exhibition and published by the museum. This exhibition is curated by Chief Curator of the TMC, Dr. Julie Sasse.

Alshaibi’s is represented with her video Wasl (Union) from the artist’s Silsila series. More than 50 artists are represented in the exhibition, including Bob Carey, Nick Cave, Angela Ellsworth, Catherine Opie, Ebony G. Patterson, Miriam Schapiro, and Andy Warhol.

A conversation between Sama Alshaibi and the museum's chief curator will be held on 9 November at the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block.

Click here for more information on the exhibition at Tucson Museum of Art



Recent Press Links

"Beyond a Pentagonal Room: Sama Alshaibi’s Silsila at the Johnson" review in the Cornell Daily Sun
"Silsila at Johnson Museum powerful, fragile" solo exhibition review



"Sama Alshaibi: Silsila" – solo exhibition at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University
9 September - 24 December 2017 | New York

Named for the Arabic word silsila, or “link,” this solo exhibition of several photographic series and videos is meant to represent the joining of individuals to one another, humans with the natural world, and the self to the divine.

Sama Alshaibi retraced the journeys of fourteenth-century explorer and scholar Ibn Batūtah through the Middle East, North Africa, and the Maldives—a group of Southeast Asian islands threatened by rising sea levels. Recording sublime desert terrains and vast skies of countries such as Egypt, Morocco, and Palestine, Alshaibi presents the feminine form—isolated amongst these spare landscapes—as a metaphor for humanity and the natural world in jewel-like colors, geometric patterning, mirroring and symmetry to reference the formal qualities of Islamic art traditions. In this way Alshaibi provokes contemporary questions about borders, migration, and environmental demise in relation to the human body in her work, informed by her own biography as a political refugee turned American citizen.

This exhibition was organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, where it debuted in 2016. Sama Alshaibi will give an artist talk about in conjunction with her solo exhibition "Silsila" at the Johnson Museum Thursday, October 12 at 5:15 PM.

Click here for more information on the exhibition at Johnson Museum



Sama Alshaibi at Palazzo Granafei-Nervegna
Timeless Fragments
9 December 2017 – 7 January 2018 | Brindisi, Italy

Sama Alshaibi will be participating with video works from her Silsila series in “Timeless Fragments: chromatic vibration between water and earth,” an exhibition in the Palazzo Granafei-Nervegna, under the patronage of the Brindisi Municipality. The exhibition unfolds in a logical-critical and psycho-geographical pathway that recalls the places of universal synergies between earth and water, the relationship between ancient and contemporary, between archeology and contemporary art. The lines of thought between sign and symbol, the enigma between fragment and uniqueness, the personal mapping between space perception and surrounding space, between micro and macro, archetype and individual story are explored.

Artists include Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Pam Longobardi, Jason DeCaires Taylor, Craig Dongoski and Giulio De Mitri. Sama Alshaibi will be participating with several video works from her Silsila series.

Click here for more info on the exhibition



Artist Talk / Decolonizing Vision Speaker Series: Sama Alshaibi, “Unchain My Feet” hosted at NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and A/P/A
Tuesday, October 10, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

"This talk explores the intersections of contemporary migration crises through a selection of Alshaibi’s work. The lecture is informed by Alshaibi’s own biography and considers the impact of socio-political conditions on individuals under threat of the state or statelessness. These forces are contextualized when resources and land, mobility, political agency, and self-affirmation are compromised. Alshaibi is Professor of Photography/Video Art at University of Arizona."

Click here for more information about the artist talk at NYU



Sama Alshaibi at Marta Herford Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design
24 June - 24 September 2017 | Herford, Germany

This summer Sama Alshaibi is included in "Suspended Territories: Artists from the Middle East and North Africa" at Marta Herford Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design in Germany. The exhibition highlights artists from the MENA region who mostly work in the United States or Europe. Connecting their diverse works are explorations of identity and questions of belonging. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue that contains profiles of each participating artist by different scholars.

A large selection of Alshaibi’s Silsila series is featured in the show (photography and video installation). Silsila was highlighted at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art last June and will travel across the United States in museum solo shows over the next few years.

Click here for information on the exhibition at Marta Herford



Sama Alshaibi in NO TO THE INVASION: BREAKDOWNS AND SIDE EFFECTS
exhibiting “Contested Land Series”
at CCS Bard Hessel Museum & Galleries, Bard College, New York
June 24, 2017 - October 29, 2017

The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College will present "No to the Invasion: Breakdowns and Side Effects", an exhibition of works drawn from the collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation, a collecting philanthropic institution based in the United Arab Emirates. The exhibition, featuring works dating from 1990 to 2016, conjures various histories intersecting a shared geopolitical space: The Arabic-speaking world—a geographic region that includes the twenty-two countries of the Arab League and whose contemporary coordinates lay between Mauritania, North Africa, and West Asia. To begin in 1990 is to recall a socio-political landscape characterized by shifting regimes of power following Pan-Arabism, the Cold War, the Kuwait War, and the end of the Lebanese Civil War. Today, while battles in Syria and Iraq continue to rage and people are increasingly displaced, radicalism and neoliberal capitalism thrive. The rumblings of these social, political, and economic histories provide a framework for critical engagement with the exhibited works. The exhibition is curated by Fawz Kabra.

Exhibited artists include: Jananne Al-Ani, Marwa Arsanios, Kader Attia, Lara Baladi, Yto Barrada, Taysir Batniji, Thuraya Al-Baqsami, Charbel-Joseph H. Boutros, Ali Cherri, Khaldoun Chichakli, Fouad Elkoury, Mohssin Harraki, Khaled Jarrar, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Mona Hatoum, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Mohammed Kazem, Kareem Lotfy, Basim Magdy, Maha Maamoun, Jumana Manna, Sophia Al Maria, Moataz Nasr, Farah Al Qasimi, Walid Raad, Sama Alshaibi, Ala Younis, Akram Zaatari.

Click here for more information on the exhibition at Bard



Sama Alshaibi in "Beautiful Stranger" at Museum De Wieger
21 May - 18 September 2017 | Netherlands

Beautiful Stranger evolves around three themes, all of which are made to foster a better acquaintance with the ‘stranger’, and to offer a space for questionings and reflections. Hubris – the obsession with control and lust for power of one who takes away land, culture, freedom and peace of the other – becoming a stranger in one’s own country. Crossroads – the inner struggle of forming one’s personality and of choosing between Western culture and the one of it’s country, but also between tradition and modernity, leading to a potential identity crisis – becoming a stranger to oneself. Exodus – fleeing one’s country, one’s culture left in shambles and abandon one’s close relatives (dead or alive). Being unwelcome elsewhere – becoming the Stranger. Alshaibi's video SWEEP will be a part of the Exodus grouping. The exhibition is a curated selection from The Nadour Collection – ‘nadour’ meaning ‘observation point’ in Arabic – gathered by the art patron Rüdiger K. Weng and curator Diana Wiegersma. The collection is the result of their many travels and engagements with artists of Arab descent. With Nadour they aim to offer these artists a platform and to promote contemporary art from the Arab world. Beautiful Stranger is curated by Diana Wiegersma.

Participating Artists: Reza Aramesh (Iran), Sama Alshaibi (Palestine), Kader Attia (Algeria), Fayçal Bagh Riche (Algeria), Taysir Batniji (Palestine), Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Algeria), Manal al Dowayan (Saudi Arabia), Ninar Esber (Lebanon) Mounir Fatmi (Morocco), Karim Ghelloussi (Algeria), Rula Halawani (Palestine), Hayv Kahraman (Iraq), Majida Khattari (Morocco), Ahmed Mater (Saudi Arabia), Youssef Nabil (Egypt), Driss Ouadahi (Algeria), Yazid Oulab (Algeria), Sara Rahbar (Iran), Larissa Sansour (Palestine).

Click here for more information about the exhibition at Museum De Wieger



Sama Alshaibi at Marta Herford Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design
24 June - 24 September 2017 | Herford, Germany

This summer Sama Alshaibi is included in Suspended Territories: Artists from the Middle East and North Africa at Marta Herford Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design in Germany. The exhibition highlights artists from the MENA region who mostly work in the United States or Europe. Connecting their diverse works are explorations of identity and questions of belonging.

A large selection of Alshaibi’s Silsila series is featured in the show. Silsila was highlighted at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art last June and will travel across the United States in museum solo shows over the next few years. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue that contains profiles and essays of each participating artist by different scholars. Art historian Maymanah Farhat will contribute an essay on Sama Alshaibi's work.

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Sama Alshaibi in the 2017 Honolulu Biennial
Middle of Now | Here
8 March - 8 May 2017 | Honolulu, Hawaii

Sama Alshaibi is included in the 2017 Honolulu Biennial, which opens on 8 March with a lineup of artists working in a variety of media from North America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. Curated by Mori Art Museum’s Fumio Nanjo and Ngahiraka Mason, former Curator of Indigenous Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, this Pacific-oriented event will highlight established and emerging artists at venues throughout the Hawaiian capital until 8 May.

Alshaibi will be represented with Wasl (Arabic for ‘Union’) (2017) a recent work from her Silsila series, a multimedia project that she began in 2009. According to the artist, Wasl describes the processes of ‘purification, transcendence, renewal, and ecological co-existence...the video presents water as a symbolic erasing of borders between nations and people.’

Click here for more information about the 2017 Honolulu Biennial