Iranian Artist Shirin Neshat: A Life in Self-Imposed Exile — theculturetrip.com

‘In this Western world that we have, culture risks being [only] a form of entertainment.’ The experience of being caught between two cultures is very much at the forefront of Shirin Neshat’s work. Neshat left Iran to study art in Los Angeles around the time of the Iranian Revolution, having been brought up to accept Western values by her father. In 1990 she returned to her home country greeted by enormous changes, both in people’s mental attitudes and physical appearances, which she described as both ‘frightening and exciting’. Not only did she experience being trapped between two different cultures, (New York and Iran) but she also found she was wrestling with the sense of nostalgia of the pre-revolutionary Iran, which she remembered as a child. Her creative work is dominated by political, social and religious motifs which continue to shape her identity.

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