From Roja, 2016/2024

This diptych edition by Shirin Neshat, based on stills from her film Roja, captures a moment of quiet intensity and psychological tension. Set against the stark, sculptural backdrop of a monumental architectural form, the female figure – Roja – appears both grounded and isolated, her gaze conveying a mixture of vulnerability and resolve. As in much of Neshat’s work, the visual composition emphasizes contrast and duality: modernity and tradition, self and society, presence and absence. The diptych format reinforces the fragmented nature of memory and identity, reflecting the film’s exploration of fear, longing, and cultural displacement through a poetic and symbolic lens.