Though Neshat has been living and working in the United States for many years, her work references her homeland of Iran. When she came to the United States after high school to study art at the University of California at Berkeley, the Islamic Revolution intervened to exile her from her homeland for over a decade.

To deal with the ensuing sense of displacement, Neshat chose to address issues in her art that examine her heritage of Islamic ideology, the role of Muslim women, and the idea of Islamic martyrdom. After being allowed to return to Iran, she began to work with film in 1996. This image from Passage is a movie still which shows a burial ritual with Muslim women digging a grave in the desert as the funeral procession approaches, still distantly seen on the horizon. Her work both dignifies and mystifies the lives of Muslim women while opening a window to westerners seeking to understand.