'A Loss for Words' is the first NFT collection by renowned artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat. Inspired by some of her earliest and most iconic photographs, the works in this series combine video, poetry and computer animation in a meditative gesture of prayer.



The collection consists of ten different texts, each selected by the artist from the work of well-known Iranian poets, including Simin Behbahani, Forugh Farrokhzad, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou and Nima Yushij.

A Loss for Words

The notion of one's desire to 'speak' to 'express' even if discreetly, in a culture of dictatorship such as my country Iran, is created in a simple, poetic yet subversive gesture. 

The Story of A Loss for Words as told by Shirin Neshat

Contract Address

About the Project

About the Artist

A Loss for Words 

I Will Greet the Sun Again (Fragment 1)

I Will Greet the Sun Again (Fragment 2)

Moonlight

I Pity the Garden (Fragment 1)

I Pity the Garden (Fragment 2)

Passenger

Song of Acquaintance

Collective Love

Ungrateful/Blasphemy (Fragment 1)

Ungrateful/Blasphemy (Fragment 2)

Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker based in New York. Her photographs, videos, and films combine poetic, politically charged images with narratives questioning issues of power, religion, race, and gender as seen through the lens of her personal experiences as an Iranian woman living in exile. Neshat's work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including at The Broad, Hirshhorn Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Stedelijk Museum, and the Serpentine Gallery. She was awarded the First International Prize at the 48th Venice Biennale and the Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the 66th Venice International Film Festival.

Proceeds from A Loss for Words benefit The Brooklyn Rail. Founded in October 2000, The Brooklyn Rail provides an independent forum for arts, culture, and politics throughout New York City and beyond. Other Rail initiatives include Rail Editions, which publishes books of poetry, experimental fiction, prose meditation, artists’ writings, art and literary criticism, and interviews with artists. The Brooklyn Rail is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 

10% of primary sale proceeds and 10% of resale royalties (1% of the total resale price) are donated to The Brooklyn Rail.

This animation is my first effort in creating a work that bridges my interest in still photography and the moving picture. In 'A Loss for Words' we use a similar approach and aesthetic as my earliest photographs, with calligraphy inscribed in the palms of hands, yet the progressive movement reveals and then exerts the words.

The notion of one’s desire to ‘speak,’ to ‘express’ even if discreetly, in a culture of dictatorship such as in my country Iran, is created in a simple, poetic yet subversive gesture. The inscribed poems are by several different Iranian poets, including Nima Yushij, Forugh Farrokhzad, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlou and Simin Behbahani.

Shirin Neshat's A Loss For Words