Shirin Neshat: Do You Dare!

On the occasion of the 2026 Venice Biennale, Associazione Genesi and Banca Ifis present the latest work by visual artist and director Shirin Neshat. The exhibition features the film trilogy “Do U Dare!”, which investigates the tragic story of Nasim Aghdam, an Iranian-born media figure whose life and practice explore the paradoxes of the female experience. Filmed across three distinct socioeconomic contexts in New York, the trilogy examines the tension between interior and exterior worlds, American society, and the Iranian female perspective.

The project traces Aghdam’s journey from her childhood escape from religious persecution in Iran to her eventual isolation in the United States. It documents her creation of a virtual world on YouTube to express her anger and need for visibility, leading to her perception of authoritarian censorship when her account was closed. Each film in the trilogy provides a fragmented portrait of her psyche: the first follows themes of displacement and the failure of the American dream in Brooklyn; the second explores the obsession with fame and public approval in Wall Street; and the final film, set in a private studio, addresses the commodification of the female body and systemic hypocrisy.

Stylistically, the trilogy transitions from black-and-white social realism to a magical, surrealist dimension. Through this interplay of fact and fiction, the exhibition serves as a meditation on exile, artistic obsession, and the fragile boundary between creation and self-destruction.