Leila Shifteh has a background in law, migration and policy. She has been working as a lawyer, researcher, as well as a visual artist focusing on photography and documentary film projects internationally. She is based in Vancouver and New York.

One of Leila's latest visual works focused on an interactive shadow installation by two artists traveling to refugee communities in Turkey and Greece. Selections of her photographs and video material were exhibited at the Surrey Art Gallery in British Columbia in summer 2022, and the McCord Museum in Montreal, Canada in 2018-2019.

When Ink Turns into Light, a mini-doc she co-created screened at the Art of Peace, a symposium on the role of arts in peacebuilding at the Institute for Peace and Justice in California in Fall 2015.

She also develops multi-series short film campaigns on resettled refugees for UNHCR Canada.

She holds a Law Degree from City University of New York, and a Masters in International Politics from Sciences Po in Paris while also attending Columbia University in NYC. Leila has worked in the Middle East, Europe, and the Caribbean on refugee and women’s rights issues.

She has a taste for figs and her biggest inspiration is her mamani.