Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi (b. 1973, Iraq) is an artist based in the United States and working between photography, video, and installation. Her practice explores the notion of aftermath—the fragmentation and dispossession that violates the individual and a community following the destruction of their social, natural, and built environment. In her photographs and videos, Alshaibi often uses her own body as both subject and medium, a staging site for encounters, peripheries, and refuge, even when carrying the markings of war and dislocation. Her work complicates the coding of the Arab female figure found in the image history of photographs and moving images.

Alshaibi was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2021 and received the Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award from the Phoenix Art Museum. Her work has been exhibited in numerous biennales and museums, including the 55th Venice Biennale, the 2020 State of the Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the 13th Cairo Biennale, Barjeel Foundation, Royal Ontario Museum, Arab American National Museum, among others. Aperture published her monograph Sama Alshaibi: Sand Rushes In, featuring the artist’s Silsila series. Alshaibi is a Regents Professor of Photography, Video and Imaging at the University of Arizona.