Sobia Ahmad is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores how our deeply intimate struggles of belonging can inform larger conversations about national identity, notions of home, cultural memory, and gender. Engaging themes of immigration and interlacing personal imagery with political symbolism, she reimagines ancestral rituals and storytelling as acts of resistance in the face of oppression.
For more information, please see: www.sobiaahmad.com, and on Instagram @sobia.ahmad.art.
Sobia Ahmad in her studio at Halcyon Arts Lab, Washington DC. Photo by Chris Ferenzi.
First, and most importantly, how are you doing? How are you navigating the highs and lows?
I’m well, all things considered. I’d say it’s a pretty even split between a wild sense of hope for the future, and being present to the grief that is emerging through us all about the injustices around us, the global chaos, and uncertainty about the future. I do miss hugging humans!
Sobia Ahmad, wherever you are is called Here (anti-flags), 2019. Weaving and screen-print on rice bags, 14 x 32 in. each. An installation of 12 anti-flags. Photo by Adam Bencomo.
It's my experience that most artists engage with some level of self-isolation in their day to day art practice. Has this been your experience? And if so, have you found these innate rhythms to be helpful during this larger, world-wide experience of isolation?
I am a semi-extrovert who values her solitude a lot. I’ve really enjoyed a lot of time being with myself, but I miss seeing other artists in the studio building. I find interaction in the studios stimulating. I’m also sad that some of my socially-engaged projects and collaborations have been on hold.
Sobia Ahmad, wherever you are is called Here (anti-flags), (detail), 2019. Weaving and screen-print on rice bags, 14 x 32 in. each. An installation of 12 anti-flags. Photo by Adam Bencomo.
It would be great if you could briefly talk us through your practice. Understanding it is integral to appreciating the multivalence of your work.
I am an interdisciplinary artist who explores the various ways the personal and political overlap to inform our individual and collective identities and psyches. As an immigrant, I am interested in how uprooted communities create literal and metaphorical sanctuaries through spiritual practices, ancestral knowledge, and inherited memories.
For the last year, I’ve been experimenting with weaving. I’ve woven dyed paper and maps and photos of my childhood home in Pakistan into rice bags and was learning to sew them into flags (anti-flags) from my 88-year old grandmother before quarantine began. While we worked together, I had been recording her stories of forced migration from India and later from Pakistan to the U.S. This work highlights how the present moment reaches forward and backward in time: the current wave of hyper-nationalism, in the U.S., in India and Pakistan, and worldwide, is deeply connected to our fraught global histories. With this, I also explore how ancestral ritual and storytelling can function as acts of resistance in the face of exile and oppression.
Much of my work from 2016 to present surrounds Executive Order No. 13769, which bans travel to the U.S. from several predominantly Muslim countries. I began Small Identitiesdays after the travel ban was passed and I was interrogated at an airport, coming back from a residency in Mexico. In June of 2018, the Supreme Court of the U.S. upheld the travel ban. Extracting language from the SCOTUS ruling, I’ve created, what I call, found poemsand engraved them into passport-sized plexi panels (Remove and Dissolve), and project them onto fabric that’s the height of my body (POWER). Using implications of language found in such exclusionary policies as a point of departure, I expose how legal language is used to create and justify notions of “the other.” The work also draws parallels between the present moment and global histories of migration, exile, and displacement.
Sobia Ahmad, Remove and Dissolve, 2018. Engraved acrylic, ink, water, cloth, video. Acrylic: 33 pieces, 3.5x5 in. each (Standard passport size). Language extracted from the 2018 Supreme Court ruling on the travel ban. Photos by Susannah Stevens.
Sobia Ahmad, POWER, 2019. Text, projection mapping on fabric, suspended from the ceiling. Fabric height: 64 in. (Height of artist’s body). Language extracted from the 2018 Supreme Court ruling on the travel ban that refers to the president’s POWER over non-American ALIENS. Photos by Ari Golu.
Has any of your imagery shifted in a reflection to what's currently happening? And why, or why not?
In the beginning I had a hard time imagining my work in a virtual setting because most of it is very intricate. Four months later, I am actually excited about new ways to expand my practice. I have always engaged with socio-political themes in my work, so the visual language and imagery remain very much the same. However, I am reimagining my socially engaged projects in response to social distancing. I’m currently working on two projects: first, a multimedia installation and performance work originally meant to be experienced in person, which most likely will be shared virtually. Second is a community-based project with college students this fall to reflect on the notion of Here through workshops, again virtual.
Sobia Ahmad, Small Identities, 2017 – ongoing. Photo-transferred ID photos of Muslim immigrants on ceramic tiles and interviews 108 tiles, as of July 2020. Dimensions variable. Photo by Frank McCauley.
Are you thinking differently? Coping differently? Inspired differently?
We are in a time of upheaval and we must realize that this is not just a political, but also a spiritual, revolution. It’s a rupture in time, a portal towards a new world. It is an opportunity for us to reimagine everything: from de-commodification of art to abolishing violent, exploitative, and oppressive systems of White supremacy (the forever pandemic) and capitalist greed. Imagining art as a way of life and not a commodity, in a post-capitalist society, is giving me life right now. I am very hopeful for the future.
Sobia Ahmad, left: Letters to the Divine (8x8.5 in) and right: Pixels (9x11 in.). Hand woven maps, paper with India ink, and frosted Mylar with calligraphy. Image courtesy of the artist.
What is bringing you solace, or even joy, in this moment?
I’ve been finding shelter in poetry, the woods, my house plants, podcasts (The Pause, hosted by Tracy K Smith, is incredible). I’m grateful to live close to Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., where I’ve been going for daily walks. In the beginning of quarantine, I packed lots of snacks, a book, and a journal every afternoon and spent hours among the trees. It was like a much needed nature sabbatical that I probably would not have allowed myself had the pandemic not forced me to slow down.
Sobia Ahmad, Landmark II, 2018. Handwoven dyed paper. 36x72 in. Image courtesy of the artist.
What research or writing are you doing that you find compelling?
I’ve been researching notions of non-linear time in various indigenous communities worldwide and the part of the world where I was born and my ancestors come from. Diving deep into myth and dreams and connecting with a more-than-human world. It’s bringing me a lot of joy.
Are you reading anything?
I just finished Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. I read several books at once and I have a system for each: I’m listening to Ain’t I a Woman, Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks (audiobook in the studio), Beauty by John O'Donohue (when I go to Rock Creek Park), and Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkila Estes (at bedtime).
Sobia Ahmad in her studio at Halcyon Arts Lab, Washington DC. Photo by Chris Ferenzi.