In early December, over 300 volunteers crowded onto the lawn of New York’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park, designed by Louis Kahn. The crowd gathered to form a waving embodiment of the free-flowing hair of Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old girl found dead after joining a protest in Tehran in September over the death, in police custody, of Mahsa Amini. As part of the ongoing Eyes on Iran demonstrations, French street artist JR invited the volunteers to move their arms behind his large-scale portrait of Nika, installed near a version of Iranian artist Shirin Neshat’s Offered Eyes, whose penetrating gaze animated the park’s steps across the East River from the United Nations headquarters.

“It was a huge triumph for activists and human rights workers in Iran,” says Iranian American artist, activist, and professor Sheida Soleimani, whose parents are political refugees from Iran. Her evocative photo collage Mahsa greeted visitors at the park’s entrance. The Providence, Rhode Island-based artist's layered surface incorporates pink and gray images of Amini’s brain scans, which were leaked to negate the government's claim of death by natural causes. In the foreground, Amini’s hand grasps a white hijab set ablaze. “I feel it's an artist's responsibility to tackle the issues of our time,” says Soleimani, “not just to make pretty things.”

Eyes on Iran ran until January 1, 2023 at FDR Four Freedoms State Park.