Since 1974, Shirin Neshat has lived in the United States, in a self-imposed exile from her native Iran. This experience, of being caught between two cultures, is reflected across Neshat’s creative output and informs her practice in which she employs photography, video installation, cinema and performance to explore the complex social, religious and political realities that shape her identity—and the identities of Muslim women worldwide. In her subsequent video works, Neshat departed from overt political content in favour of poetic imagery and narrative to engage with themes of gender and society, the individual and the collective, and the dialectical relationship between past and present, through the lens of her experiences of belonging and exile. Some solo exhibitions of her works in 2018 include I am you, you are too, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Looking for Oum Kulthum, Faurschou Foundation, Copenhagen and Frauen in Gesellschaft, Neue Galerie, Graz.