Devotions
DEVOTIONS, Installation view, 2024, Kohl Gallery, Gibson Center for the Arts, Washington College, Chestertown, MD
DEVOTIONS is centered within Sobia Ahmad’s ongoing connection to the Pando Forest in Utah. This ancient grove of 47,000 aspen trees is considered Earth’s oldest living organism. Pando stretches over 100 acres and is unified by a single immense root system, making it ‘a forest of one’. Writing about this forest and its broader influence on her artistic practice Ahmad shares: “I see Pando’s root system as a guiding metaphor for interconnectedness. I am interested in the theme of entanglement through the lens of Oneness in Sufi mysticism, the power of film as a medium to remind us of our shared reality, and the political implications of relating to each other and a more-than-human world as an interconnectedness whole.”
DEVOTIONS includes Ahmad’s premier of a handmade accordion book, thirty feet long, entitled The Breath within the Breath. The book depicts a single continuous photograph taken on one roll of 35mm film as Ahmad stands in the center of the forest and holds the camera to her chest capturing the image as she turns in time with her breath. The Breath within the Breath's title is a verse from the South Asian mystic poet Kabir. Evoking the dance of the Sufi dervishes, this work engages with the notion of embodied prayer.
The artist will also be exhibiting a minuscule gelatin silver print of the moon from her series Punctuations. Ahmad’s films are developed through her experiments in alternative photochemistry. Like Jemery Lynch who generations before her developed his photographs in Lake Ontario where chemicals from Eastman Kodak’s Rochester factory flowed from the mouth of the Genesee River, Ahmad’s work stands out amongst a lineage of artists whose practice is informed and energized by the collateral imperfections created through a laborious environmentally-conscious process. Through years of trial and error, Ahmad mixes a careful selection of groceries including coffee, Vitamin C powder, salt, and lemon juice over the kitchen sink to tease a seemingly infinite galaxy of stars from the sludge of wet coffee grounds for her To become dust that sings its melody to the night, 2024 gelatin silver print. For Ahmad, this devotional practice, “honors the materiality of the film, the ecological situation at large, and my own contemplative practice.”
Text by Rob Blackson, Director and Curator Kohl Gallery, Washington College
To become dust that sings its melody to the night (installation view)
Gelatin silver print
20 x 24 in.
To become dust that sings its melody to the night (detail)
Gelatin silver print
20 x 24 in.
To become dust that sings its melody to the night (detail)
Gelatin silver print
20 x 24 in.
As One They Quake II (installation view)
Gelatin silver print
16 x 20 in.
As One They Quake II (detail)
Gelatin silver print
16 x 20 in.
As One They Quake II (detail)
Gelatin silver print
16 x 20 in.
The Breath within the Breath (contact print)
Gelatin silver print
72 x 8 in.
The Breath within the Breath (contact print, detail)
Gelatin silver print
72 x 8 in.
The Breath within the Breath (Accordion Book), Installation view
Inkjet print on archival Japanese asuka paper, 30 feet long
The Breath within the Breath (Accordion Book detail)
Inkjet print on archival Japanese asuka paper, 30 feet long
The Breath within the Breath (Accordion Book detail)
Inkjet print on archival Japanese asuka paper, 30 feet long
Installation view of The Breath within the Breath (Accordion Book), 30 feet long, and other gelatin silver photographs
In Search of First Fire
Gelatin silver prints, series of 5 prints, edition of 5 sets, 11x14 in. each.
[Moths encircling an electric lamp]
In Search of First Fire I (detail)
Gelatin silver print, 11x14 in. [Moths encircling an electric lamp]
In Search of First Fire II
Gelatin silver print, 11x14 in. [Moths encircling an electric lamp]
Puncture (from the series 'Punctuations')
Gelatin silver print, 11x14 in.
Made from a single frame of 16mm film
Puncture (from the series 'Punctuations') detail
Gelatin silver print, 11x14 in.
Made from a single frame of 16mm film