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5 Fast Facts: Celebrating Nowruz

Blog Category:  5 Fast Facts
Close-up, black-and-white photograph of a woman's hands with fingers interlaced around a silver, vintage microphone. Lines of poetry inscribed in Farsi form a three-leaf shape on her left hand.
March 20, 2026
3/20/26

Celebrate the spring equinox and Nowruz, the Persian New Year, with facts about five NMWA collection artists whose work is rooted in Persian traditions and experiences. Nowruz is a time of gathering, celebration, and renewal, and we invite you to learn about these artists and their powerful work.

1. Golnar Adili

Book artist Golnar Adili (b. 1976) said, “I work a lot with paper-based materials because I have a love for it, but also because it’s readily available [and] doesn’t make a huge mess.” Adili, who was born in Virginia and grew up in Tehran, uses archival materials to explore her family’s experience of displacement.

Artist’s book spread open with small wooden cubes printed with photographic fragments scattered across pages featuring archival images and text.
Golnar Adili, She Feels Your Absence Deeply, 2021; Yatsuo, BFK, miscellaneous thin Japanese paper, inkjet tattoo paper for the blocks, Colorplan text weight, 3.25 x 4.25 x 1.75 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, photo courtesy of Women’s Studio Workshop

2. Ambreen Butt

Formally trained in Indian and Persian miniature painting, Pakistani American artist Ambreen Butt (b.1969) uses many techniques in her work, including drawing, stitching, staining, etching, and gluing. Her works are highly detailed and labor intensive, a practice she says reflects the unseen labor of women in everyday life.

A work on tan paper features an image framed within an intricate shape in light blue, black, and gold. In the center, a circular opening like a camera viewfinder shows images of several screaming women drawn in precise outlines. They appear alongside a man with a bow and arrow and women in traditional South Asian attire. In the bottom right corner, the rear end of a tiger is visible as it walks off the page.
Ambreen Butt, The Great Hunt I, from the series “Dirty Pretty,” 2008; Water-based pigments, white gouache, text, thread, and gold leaf on layers of Mylar and tea-stained paper, 45 x 30 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of the Massachusetts State Committee of NMWA; © Ambreen Butt; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

3. Shirin Neshat

Photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat (b. 1957) often incorporates Farsi calligraphy into her images. She uses the text, usually by women writers and poets, inscribed over her photographs as a veil, covering exposed hands and faces. More recently, Neshat has turned her creative eye to directing feature films and operas.

Close-up, black-and-white photograph of a woman's hands with fingers interlaced around a silver, vintage microphone. Lines of poetry inscribed in Farsi form a three-leaf shape on her left hand.
Shirin Neshat, On Guard, 1997; Gelatin silver print with ink, 11 x 14 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Tony Podesta Collection; © Shirin Neshat, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery

4. Sheida Soleimani 

Multihyphenate Sheida Soleimani (b. 1990) is an artist, professor, and bird rehabilitator. She learned how to care for birds from her mother, whose experience as a political refugee escaping Iran during the Iranian Revolution has been a source of inspiration for Soleimani’s artwork. Soleimani founded and directs the nonprofit Congress of the Birds.

Surreal staged photograph with a masked figure seated amid layered images, patterned textiles, and cut photographic fragments forming a dense collage-like scene.
Sheida Soleimani, Panjereh, 2022; Archival pigment print, 60 x 44 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell and the Ohio Advisory Group; © Sheida Soleimani

5. Newsha Tavakolian

Newsha Tavakolian (b. 1981) is a self-taught photographer who began her career as a photojournalist for Iranian press at age 16. Over time she found that she could not express herself as freely as she wanted to. In her words, “When they keep you from breathing through your nose, you open your mouth to breathe. For me, art photography was necessary to be able to breathe again.”  

About the Author

—Micah Koppl is the education assistant at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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