Sama Alshaibi works between photography, video, and installation. The work explores the notion of aftermath: the fragmentation and dispossession that violates individuals and communities following the destruction of their social, natural, and built environments. In particular, Alshaibi examines what war and ecological demise produce. Severed access to her homeland of Iraq, followed by years of migration across the Middle East and the United States, has fissured her identity.

In 2021, Alshaibi was named a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of the Phoenix Art Museum's Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award. Her biennial participation includes the 55th Venice Biennale, the 2020 State of the Art (Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, AK), International Art Biennial of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia, 2020), 13th Cairo International Biennale (2019), Honolulu Biennial (2017), Qalandia International Biennial (2016), and the FotoFest Biennial (2014). She has exhibited at museums globally, including MoMA (New York), MOCA (Florida), Arab American National Museum (Michigan), MARTA Herford Museum (Germany), SMOCA (Arizona), the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (New York), Barjeel Foundation (Sharjah), Institut Du Monde Arabe (Paris), Bronx Museum (NYC), and Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver).