Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
Return
Sama Alshaibi
Photograph, 2005
Sama Alshaibi is a mixed media artist who uses photographs, video, and immersive installations to examine feelings of displacement. Born in Basra to an Iraqi father and a Palestinian mother, Alshaibi experienced a childhood marred by war, hunger, and exile.
Return comes from Alshaibi’s Birthright Series which is based on narratives of her family’s forced migration from Palestine to Iraq, and eventual settlement in America. The culmination is Alshaibi’s return to her homeland, though this return is only temporary.
The central figure of the work is Alshaibi herself, visibly pregnant and wearing an ornate headdress. On her belly is written: Enough for me to remain in my country’s embrace to be in her as a handful of dust, a sprig of grass.
Her status in this image as an expectant mother can be interpreted as an act of ultimate defiance in the face of the attempted obliteration of Palestinian culture and history. In the face of destruction Alshaibi’s body can be read as a symbol of creation and hope.
“As a refugee, I cultivate a resistance – in myself, and in my audiences – that aims to trouble the prevailing representations of our bodies, cultures, and spaces.”Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
Sama Alshaibi is assistant professor of art in the Photography Department at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She is co-founder of the 6+ women’s art collective. Born in Basra, Iraq, asan Iraqi-Palestinian, she is now a naturalized US citizen. Alshaibi’s recent works investigates “borderlands”, including her own hyphenated identity, as critical sites in both physical and psychological terms. A multi-media artist, Alshaibi’s photography, video and installations are widely exhibited internationally including South Africa, Ireland, China, Jordan, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia and the USA. Her art and essays have recently appeared in Nueva Luz, Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, and Refuge & Rejection. Alshaibi received her MFA at University of Colorado (Boulder) in Photography, Video and Media Arts (2005).