When Shirin Neshat photographed Malala, she turned to calligraphy to say what the camera alone could not

A lone silhouetted figure stands before a giant projected black-and-white portrait of Malala Yousafzai, surrounded by colourful animated flowers and foliage at the base of the image.

Many portrait photographers would dream of shooting someone influential and world-famous. Pretty good for the résumé, right? But at the same time, it's a tricky ask. How do you go about photographing someone who's already an icon? Your subject walks in carrying every image of themselves that already exists. How do you come up with something fresh?

Shirin Neshat had exactly this dilemma when the National Portrait Gallery commissioned her in March 2018 to photograph Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history. Her answer was to put the camera down and pick up a pen. Or rather: to use both.