Overview
Sama Alshaibi is a photographer, video artist and accomplished filmmaker, born in Basra, Iraq to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother and is now a naturalized US citizen. Her works evoke the language of suffering, displacement and loss. In her performances, she often uses her own body as both a protagonist and a site, linking struggles and the way that nations have affected and twisted lives. An Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Arizona, she received her M.F.A. in Photography and Video and Media Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Alshaibi has been an artist-in-residence at Light Works (2010), Darat Al Funun (2008, 2007) and Dar Annadwa (2005). She has exhibited in institutions and galleries in 25 countries, including: Exit Art (NYC), Institut Du Monde Arabe (Paris), Darat Al-Funun (Amman), Al Hoash (Jerusalem), DARB (Cairo), The Bronx Museum (NYC), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver) and solo exhibitions at Selma Feriani Gallery (London) and Lawrie Shabibi Gallery (Dubai), both whom represent her.