Sayed, from the series Our House is on Fire

This portrait comes from Neshat’s series Our House Is on Fire, which explores the consequences of the 2011 Egyptian revolution through the eyes of those who lost loved ones in the violence. In 2012 Neshat spent a period near Tahrir Square in Cairo and formed relationships with the grieving subjects of this series. Neshat returned to her New York studio, printed the images, and began overpainting them with miniscule, nearly-indecipherable lines of Persian poetry, much of it relating to the Iranian Revolution (1978–1979). The text and image in this work offer multiple references to loss and suffering, relating to two revolutions in the Middle East—while also registering the ongoing tensions between Egypt and Iran while Neshat was at work on the series.