Sobia Ahmad

Entangled Light | ربطِ نُور , Installation view, 2026, Hamiltonian Artists, Washington, DC

All installation photographs by Vivian Marie Doering

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Hamiltonian Artists is thrilled to present Entangled Light | ربطِ نُور,  a solo exhibition by Sobia Ahmad. The immersive multimedia installation—composed of experimental gelatin silver photographs and hand-processed 16mm film—explores and expands upon an ancient Sufi parable of moths drawn to a flame. Paralleling the moth’s pull toward light with the artist’s labor in the darkroom, the project frames artistic practice as a form of spiritual inquiry shaped by uncertainty, trial, reverence, and revelation.

 

Entangled Light considers analog film and photographic practice as both method and metaphor, where slippage and error become generative conditions for transformation. Photographs are produced through Ahmad’s biodegradable photochemical processes and homemade developers made from kitchen compost, used coffee grounds, washing soda, salt, and plants. Using different recipes, she allows chemical residues, light leaks, fingerprints, and variations in tone to accumulate on film and photographic paper, embracing chance and unexpected outcomes.

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Ahmad, working with an entomologist, photographed and filmed moths and attended evening mehfils, where Qawwali singers carry the moth-and-flame parable through poetry and oral tradition. Images of her own hands appear alongside those of the entomologist and the hand gestures of Qawwali singers during devotional recitations. Bringing these forms of knowledge together, the work reveals how scientific observation, spiritual practice, and artistic labor offer interconnected ways of attending to the world and glimpsing a larger whole. 

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Throughout the installation, repetition becomes a form of seeking. Images are returned to, altered, reprinted, and developed again, echoing the iterative nature of both devotional practice and scientific inquiry. Rather than offering a single way of knowing, Entangled Light places science, mysticism, and embodied experience in direct conversation, suggesting that seeking is not a movement toward certainty, but a practice of staying open.

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