Cosmic Veils

2020-2022

Cosmic Veils (installation video)-Laser-cut fluorescent & transparent acrylic, dichroic film, 34’ x 14’ x 14’ (main gallery), 16’ x 12’ x 10’ (south gallery)

Alexandre Hogue Gallery
University of Tulsa, OK

Katara Cultural Village, Doha, Qatar (video)

Qatar America Institute of Culture, Washington D.C. (video)

Aicon Gallery Viewing Room (digital format)
New York, NY

Cosmic Veils unifies a number of strands that form recurring themes in my work: notions of veiling; destruction and resurrection; and the universal forms that emerge in art & the natural world. A site-specific installation inspired by the Western Veil of the Veil Nebula—a glowing haze comprising remnants of the violent death of a star twenty times larger than the sun—Cosmic Veils invites us to consider that the aftermath of the massive destruction can offer something beautiful and unique. I compose aesthetic sanctuaries, collective retreats from the anxieties and upheavals of life, sites for wonder, meditation, and peace. Cosmic Veils seeks to recreate an otherworldly space, one where time stands still and the viewer is bathed in patterns of light & immersed in rhythms of creation. Cosmic Veils fused my previous research on the overlap between patterns created by natural forces and Islamic theory of sacred geometry with astro-physics. My otherworldly space evokes a key sacred geometric principle: exposing the spiritual within the material.

Photocredits: Sarah Ahmad, Melissa Lukenbaugh, & Andrew Taylor

Panning across the Veil Nebula:

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team & Music by: Johan Monell

Cosmic Veils Installation View — Photocredit: Melissa Lukenbaugh

The Veil Nebula comprises layers of luminous filaments draping over a span of 110 light-years. The violent death of a star manifests as a glowing haze that suggests exquisite meandering veils. Semi-transparent, as are all veils, it alternately reveals and conceals. We can focus on its places of opacity, or we can look through it to light beyond. Alternatively, we can see it as a manifestation of light itself. For me, it became a metaphor for an unveiling of identities and mysteries. The shredded remnants of the star shower us with a glorious monument to renewal after the dissolution of one identity as it transforms into another. This cosmic veil offers a much-needed metaphor for resurrection after destruction.

Cosmic Veils further reflects on the significance of the veil. A veil might offer refuge from the outside world. But it also might isolate, concealing one’s true identity. Such a notion invites us to consider the parts of ourselves or our society that might be veiled, even from ourselves. What would it mean to unveil these hidden aspects? What might that veil look like? What if we set it free and watched it fly away, carried on the wind as something ephemeral in itself? These moments of trauma, which we are now experiencing collectively on an unprecedented scale through the global pandemic of Covid-19, often serve to violently “unveil” what we might generally keep hidden. We are reminded that this unveiling process can be deeply discomfiting. In Cosmic Veils, I draw on these ideas, while looking to the cosmic.

My work invites us to confront these questions in a space of beauty and meditation: to consider that the aftermath of a violently destructive event can offer something even more beautiful. I compose aesthetic sanctuaries, collective retreats from the anxieties and upheavals of life, sites for wonder, meditation, and peace.

It was similarly important for me to create a setting that could be experienced physically, as well as virtually. Largely isolated in our homes, much of our interaction with the world was virtual in the era of Covid-19 lockdown when this work was installed. Indeed, the Veil Nebula itself is something we can only experience through images, and in our imaginations. Cosmic Veils invites viewers to traverse an imagined reconstruction of this space.

Ultimately Cosmic Veils seeks to recreate an otherworldly space, one where time stands still and the viewer is immersed in rhythms of creation. Here one becomes an integral part of something larger than oneself. The veils concealing hidden traumas, injustices are blown away, one by one, setting us free.

This project is created with support from the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

Phots by Melissa Lukenbaugh, Andrew Taylor, Sarah Ahmad

Video courtesy of Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Melissa Lukenbaugh, and Brandon Pade

*Reviews & Interviews

*Studio Tulsa, NPR Interview, Artist Sarah Ahmad Offers "Cosmic Veils"

*Unveiling light, discovering wonder: A review of Sarah Ahmad’s Cosmic Veils, University of Tulsa

*Cosmic Veils Exhibit Finds Beauty in Destruction, Tulsa World

Tulsa Artist Fellowship Blog

Artist Sarah Ahmad Offers "Cosmic Veils," Now on View at TU's Hogue Gallery, Studio Tulsa, NPR

*NPR Podcast, Studio Tulsa, Sept. 8th, 2020, Artist Sarah Ahmad Offers "Cosmic Veils"