Sama Alshaibi is an interdisciplinary artist working between photography, video, emerging media and installation. Her practice examines the notion of aftermath—the fragmentation and dispossession experienced by individuals and communities following the destruction of their social, natural, and built environments.
Alshaibi was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2021, the Art Matters Betty Parsons Fellow in 2023, and a Resident Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy (2024). Her work has been exhibited in numerous biennales and museums, including the 55th Venice Biennale, State of the Art 2020 at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the 13th Cairo Biennale, the MoMA, the Institut Du Monde Arabe, and the Barjeel Art Foundation. Aperture Foundation published her monograph Sama Alshaibi: Sand Rushes In, featuring her Silsila series probing borders and ecological demise. Alshaibi is a Regents Professor and Chair of Photography, Video, and Imaging at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
At MacDowell, Alshaibi is produced a mixed-media project comprised of Lidar scans, photography, and archival material to explore Baghdad’s transformation and ecological decline. The collages reflect the city’s complex urban narrative, drawing on modernist theories of perception and materiality in visual and literary forms.
Portrait by Zakiriya Gladney
