Sama Raena Alshaibi سما الشيبي (born in Basra, Iraq) to an Iraqi father and Palestinian mother.[1] She is an artist and photographer, in which she uses her cultural heritage to reflect her work and help inform her audience of her identity. Her mother and her family were relocated to Iraq at around 60 years ago, as a result of Al Nakba, after meeting her father; the family left Basra in 1981. Her story of leaving Iraq is told in her film Goodbye to the Weapon. She is co-founder of the women's art collective, 6plus.
"Alshaibi’s confident figures not only express a sense of fortitude—they recall a distinct imagery found in post-Nakba Palestinian art and visual culture in which portrayals of women are iconic signifiers of a people’s tenacity. In paintings and illustrations by influential Palestinian artists Suleiman Mansour, Ismail Shammout, and Abdul Rahman al Muzayen, the female image is depicted as the embodiment of sumoud. Today we find a new generation of artists continuing and reinventing this tradition in a multitude of mediums."[2]
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Received her BA in Photography at Columbia College Chicago and her Masters of Fine Arts (Photography, Video and New Media) at University of Colorado at Boulder. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at University of Arizona.