Reflecting on themes of migration, reconciliation, and photography as a bridge, join us at ICP for a conversation between Sheida Soleimani and writer and curator Murtaza Vali about her exhibition Panjereh, on view through September 28.The conversation is being offered both in person at ICP, located on NYC's Lower East Side and online. Tickets to attend in person are $5 and include access to ICP’s galleries. Arrive early to see Panjereh as well as Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration, also on view through September 28.About the ExhibitionIn Panjereh, Soleimani uses her family’s history—specifically her parents' flight from Iran as political refugees following the 1979 revolution—as a framework for exploring how meaning and memory are shaped by migration.Known for her studio-based constructions that layer photographs, props, live animals, and her parents into magical realist tableaus, Soleimani expands this approach in “Panjereh” while also debuting a new body of work: a series of close-up analogue photographs of injured birds. These works draw from her practice as a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator and founder of Congress of the Birds, a care tradition she inherited from her mother.In these new images, Soleimani draws attention to the plight of migratory birds, many of whom are wounded on their journeys through populated areas, using them as metaphors for the social, political, and environmental barriers faced by displaced people around the world. The exhibition also includes a new site-specific wall drawing created especially for ICP’s galleries.About the SpeakersSheida Soleimani (b. 1990) is an Iranian-American artist, educator and activist. The daughter of political refugees who escaped Iran in the early 1980s, Soleimani makes work that excavates the histories of violence linking Iran, the United States and the Greater SWANA Region. In working across form and medium—especially photography, sculpture, collage and film—she often appropriates source images from popular/digital media and resituates them within defamiliarizing tableaux. The composition depends on the question at hand. For example, how can one do justice to survivor testimony and to the survivors themselves (To Oblivion)? What are the connections between oil, corruption and human rights abuses among OPEC nations (Medium of Exchange)? How do nations work out reparations deals that often turn the ethics of historical injustice into playing fields for their own economic interests (Reparations Packages)? How may the layering of memory and familial history both report fact and produce a reckoning with the intimate resonances of a geopolitics of violence (Ghostwriter)? In contrast to Western news, which rarely covers these problems, Soleimani makes work that persuades spectators to address them directly and effectively.Soleimani’s work is held in permanent collections including the Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, MIT List Visual Art Center and Kadist Paris. Her work has been recognized internationally in both exhibitions and publications such as The New York Times, Financial Times, Art in America, Interview Magazine, and many others. Based in Providence, Rhode Island, Soleimani is also an Associate Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University and a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Murtaza Vali is a critic, curator, and art historian based in Brooklyn and Sharjah. A recipient of a 2011 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing, he publishes regularly in art periodicals and exhibition catalogues for non-profit institutions and commercial galleries. Vali is an Adjunct Curator at the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, where he organized the widely-acclaimed group exhibitions Crude (2018-19), which explored the relationship between oil and modernity across West Asia and North Africa, and Guest Relations (with Lucas Morin) (2023-24), a sequel exhibition examining hotels and the hospitality industry across the Global South. He is also the curator of Proposals for a Memorial to Partition, an itinerant research and curatorial platform investigating the lingering trauma and legacy of partitions in South Asia and beyond. First appearing in Manual for Treason, a publication commissioned for Sharjah Biennial 10 (2011), subsequent iterations of this project have been presented at the Jameel Arts Centre (2022-23) and Twelve Gates Arts, Philadelphia (2023). Sheida Soleimani, Deliverance, 2024 © Sheida Soleimani, Courtesy Edel Assanti, London and Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels

This event is free with museum admission.Join us for a guided walking tour of the exhibitions Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration and Sheida Soleimani: Panjereh, led by a museum educator.About the ExhibitionsEdward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration The first solo institutional exhibition of world-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work in New York City in over twenty years, The Great Acceleration reveals the depth of Burtynsky's investigation into the human alteration of natural landscapes around the world, revealing both their present fragility and enduring beauty.This retrospective features over seventy photographs—including many of Burtynsky’s landmark images, some never before exhibited—alongside three ultra high-resolution murals and a visual and narrative timeline of his creative life. The Great Acceleration serves as both an urgent call for environmental awareness and an invitation to appreciate the sublimity that persists in the landscape, deepening our understanding of the global challenges we face today.Sheida Soleimani: Panjereh In Panjereh, Soleimani uses her family’s history—specifically her parents' flight from Iran as political refugees following the 1979 revolution—as a framework for exploring how meaning and memory are shaped by migration.Known for her studio-based constructions that layer photographs, props, live animals, and her parents into magical realist tableaus, Soleimani expands this approach in Panjereh while also debuting a new body of work: a series of close-up analogue photographs of injured birds. These works draw from her practice as a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator and founder of Congress of the Birds, a care tradition she inherited from her mother.In these new images, Soleimani draws attention to the plight of migratory birds, many of whom are wounded on their journeys through populated areas, using them as metaphors for the social, political, and environmental barriers faced by displaced people around the world. The exhibition also includes a new site-specific wall drawing created especially for ICP’s galleries. Program Format/Accessibility InformationThis is a walking tour of the gallery; no seating is provided. For accessibility questions or requests, please email [email protected]. Image © Pasinee Pramunwong

Join ICP in the Lower East Side at Seward Park for a special birding event led by the organization, NYC Queer Birders. After learning about the local bird population, the group will walk to ICP for an introductory tour of our current exhibition, Sheida Soleimani: Panjereh followed by a hands-on activity using Soleimani’s bird silhouettes to make custom stickers and anti-strike window decals designed to protect birds from flying into windows.Bring your own binoculars. Limited binoculars will be available but are not required to join the program. We welcome all bird enthusiasts, regardless of experience.This ticket includes admission to ICP’s exhibition, Sheida Soleimani: Panjereh.About NYC Queer Birders walk:NYC Queer Birders started in February 2020 as a way to cultivate community and explore the natural world of New York City with LGBTQA+ bird-lovers. Queer Birders hosts birding events all year round, in all 5 boroughs. If you love birds, meeting new people, and spending afternoons outside in a queer-friendly setting, we would love to have you join us! We welcome all bird enthusiasts, regardless of experience.About Hannah Kirshenbaum:Hannah Kirshenbaum is an avid birder and lifelong lover of the natural world. In 2020 they founded NYC Queer Birders as a way to cultivate community and explore the natural world of New York City with LGBTQIA+ bird-lovers. Through all the seasons, Hannah leads educational birding events in all 5 boroughs and beyond. They love to welcome all bird enthusiasts, regardless of experience. Hannah's favorite bird is a Ruby-crowned kinglet because they are so adorable and you're lucky if you get to see their ruby crown!About Sheida Soleimani: PanejerahThe International Center of Photography (ICP) is proud to present Panjereh, an exhibition by Iranian-American artist Sheida Soleimani. Panjereh—which means ‘window’ or ‘passageway’ in Farsi—builds on Soleimani’s ongoing Ghostwriter series, in which she explores her parents’ experiences of political exile and migration as a lens to examine broader systems of geopolitics. Known for her intricate, studio-based compositions that combine photographs, props, live animals and even her own parents in surreal, magical realist scenes, Soleimani expands her practice in Panjereh with the debut of a new body of work featuring injured birds. These images draw from her work as a wildlife rehabilitator and founder of Congress of the Birds, a federally licensed wild bird rehabilitation center in Rhode Island. The exhibition will also include a new site-specific wall drawing created specifically for ICP’s galleries. Sheida Soleimani, Khoy, 2021 © Sheida Soleimani, Courtesy Edel Assanti, London and Harlan Levey Projects, Brussels

This event is free with museum admission.Join us for a guided walking tour of the exhibitions Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration and Sheida Soleimani: Panjereh, led by a museum educator.About the ExhibitionsEdward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration The first solo institutional exhibition of world-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky’s work in New York City in over twenty years, The Great Acceleration reveals the depth of Burtynsky's investigation into the human alteration of natural landscapes around the world, revealing both their present fragility and enduring beauty.This retrospective features over seventy photographs—including many of Burtynsky’s landmark images, some never before exhibited—alongside three ultra high-resolution murals and a visual and narrative timeline of his creative life. The Great Acceleration serves as both an urgent call for environmental awareness and an invitation to appreciate the sublimity that persists in the landscape, deepening our understanding of the global challenges we face today.Sheida Soleimani: Panjereh In Panjereh, Soleimani uses her family’s history—specifically her parents' flight from Iran as political refugees following the 1979 revolution—as a framework for exploring how meaning and memory are shaped by migration.Known for her studio-based constructions that layer photographs, props, live animals, and her parents into magical realist tableaus, Soleimani expands this approach in Panjereh while also debuting a new body of work: a series of close-up analogue photographs of injured birds. These works draw from her practice as a federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator and founder of Congress of the Birds, a care tradition she inherited from her mother.In these new images, Soleimani draws attention to the plight of migratory birds, many of whom are wounded on their journeys through populated areas, using them as metaphors for the social, political, and environmental barriers faced by displaced people around the world. The exhibition also includes a new site-specific wall drawing created especially for ICP’s galleries. Program Format/Accessibility InformationThis is a walking tour of the gallery; no seating is provided. For accessibility questions or requests, please email [email protected]. Image © Pasinee Pramunwong

Explore ICP’s Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration exhibition during this hands-on all ages family workshop led by educator Carlos Nunez. Learn about human impact on our planet through large-scale natural landscapes photographs during an introductory tour of the show, then join the hands-on activity to make your own Climate Change Collage Posters. Using repurposed magazines, copies of archival photographs from ICP, and other collage materials, participants will make posters that mix imagery and a message towards climate change. All ages 4 and up are welcome. Parents and guardians must remain with their children during the activity.

Join us online to learn more about ICP’s One-Year Certificate Programs in Writing and the Photographic Image and Curatorial Practices in Photography led by Program Leads Alan Huck and Daria Tuminas. David Campany, ICP’s Creative Director and the visionary behind these two new programs, will also join the session.They will provide an overview of the program’s curriculum, structure, admissions process, and how to apply. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions and hear directly from both Program Leads and David Campany.Applications for the 2026 Academic Year Are Now Open. The priority deadline for merit-based scholarship consideration is October 19, 2025. ICP’s Online One-Year Certificate Programs begin in mid-January 2026.About the Event FormatThis is an online event held via Zoom. If you have questions, please contact: [email protected]. Image © Jeenah Moon

Join us at the International Center of Photography for the launch of the fall Naomi Rosenblum ICP Talks Photographer lectures series featuring world renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky, and environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben. Focussing on the role of the image in the age of the climate crisis, the conversation will be moderated by ICP Creative Director, David Campany, who also curated Burtynsky's career-spanning retrospective, The Great Acceleration, on view at ICP through September 28, 2025.The program will be followed by a book signing with Bill McKibben for his latest publication Here Comes the Sun: A Last Change for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, and with Edward Burtynsky for the Steidl-published exhibition catalogue, featuring all 70+ works in the ICP show.Purchase your book(s) in advance and explore the publications to our exhibitions through ICP's shop.About the SeriesICP is thrilled to honor Naomi Rosenblum’s contribution to the field and to further her life’s work through this lecture series. Naomi Rosenblum was one of the leading photography historians of her generation and the author of A World History of Photography and A History of Women Photographers. The 2025-2026 Naomi Rosenblum ICP Talks Photographer Lecture Series is made possible through generous support from the Rosenblum Family.This program is being offered both in person at ICP, located on NYC's Lower East Side, and online. Current ICP students and faculty of the One-Year Certificate programs are automatically enrolled and invited to attend all lectures.The 2025-2026 Naomi Rosenblum ICP Talks Photographer Lecture Series is made possible through generous support from the Rosenblum Family.About the GuestsEdward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world's most accomplished contemporary photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of humans on the planet. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 80 major museums around the world. . Burtynsky’s distinctions include the inaugural TED Prize in 2005, which he shared with Bono and Robert Fischell; the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts; the Outreach Award at the Rencontres d’Arles; the Roloff Beny Book award and the 2018 Photo London Master of Photography Award. Burtynsky was also a key production figure in the award winning documentary trilogy Manufactured Landscapes (dir. Jennifer Baichwal, 2006), Watermark (dir. Baichwal and Burtynsky, 2013) and ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch (dir. Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Burtynsky, 2018). All three films continue to play in festivals around the world. Burtynsky currently holds nine honorary doctorate degrees.Bill McKibben is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestsellers The End of Nature, Falter, and Deep Economy. Founder of Third Act, a project organizing people over sixty for progressive change, he lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern. Image: Edward Burtynsky, Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community / Suburb, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, 2011