Sheida Soleimani

Cast aluminum tulips on hand-hewn Tulip Poplar wood bases
Edition of 100 tulips
Artisans: Heartfelt Tidbits refugee artisans

For Wave Pool's ninth Welcome Edition, Iranian-American artist Sheida Soleimani created a field of 100 cast aluminum tulips representing the first 100 protestors killed in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who died in September 2022 while in police custody.

Red tulips are a long-standing symbol of martyrdom in Iran. Each tulip rests on a hand-hewn piece of tulip poplar wood featuring Soleimani's artist stamp. Each was hand-sculpted by Heartfelt Tidbits refugee artisans and inscribed with the name of one protestor in both Farsi and English.

Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) is an Iranian-American artist, educator, and activist based in Providence, Rhode Island, and Associate Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University. Raised in Cincinnati by political refugees who fled Iran in the 1980s, Soleimani creates multimedia work excavating histories of political violence connecting Iran, the United States, and the Greater Middle East. Collections include the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Victoria & Albert Museum, and MIT List Visual Art Center. Her Welcome Edition tulips debuted at the 2023 Armory Show. Her solo exhibition What a Revolutionary Must Know was on view at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2025–26). She is founder of Congress of the Birds and the only federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Rhode Island.

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