Sama Raena Alshaibi

Who is Sama Raena Alshaibi?

Sama Raena Alshaibi سما الشيبي to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother. She is a conceptual artist, in which she often deals with spaces of conflict as her primary subject. War, exile, power and the quest for survival are themes often seen in her works. She often uses her own body in her artwork, as a representation of the country or issue she is dealing with. Her mother and her grandparents were relocated to Iraq at around 60 years ago, as a result of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, after meeting her father; Alshaibi and her siblings and parents left Basra in 1981. Her story of leaving Iraq is told in her film Goodbye to the Weapon and "Where The Birds Fly".

She was raised between the Middle East and United States of America, where she attended high school at Iowa City High School, in Iowa CIty Iowa. She studied photography at Columbia College in Chicago, and received her MFA at University of Colorado at Boulder, in 2005. She has exhibited extensively throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East since 2003. Her solo exhibitions include London, Dubai, Guatemala City, Jerusalem and Ramallah. Her works are exhibited internationally, including the 55th Venice Biennale.