Drawings
Ahmed maps sound to visualize the ever-changing unseen. Her time-based process involves deep listening and methodical transcription of melody and rhythm. Steel on wood drawings serve as pictorial scores for sound compositions.
Passage Calls III - Homeland Here Now, 2021, Miami Art Basel
Steel drawing on wood, 54 × 36 x 0.75 inches.
This new body of work is an extension of my archival project, Apnay Mahal Ma. The steel on wood drawing is a pictorial representation of a traveling folk song of migrants, survivors and dreamers. Composed as a totemic form for future-past matriarchal sounds, it presents momentary connections to a sense of longing and belonging. This work reflects the spirit of the time, which is both the continuity of traditions and also cultural transformation.
Passage Calls II, 2019
Sound installation with steel drawing on wood,
72 x 36 x 0.75 inches.
For this work I looked at the Arabian sea as the sounding body, and the sea shore as a place that endlessly receives its many forms and languages. This pictorial score gathers the polyphonic dialogues between what the wav(e)s bring, and where they are received.
Passage Calls I, 2019
Sound installation with steel drawing on wood,
11.6 x 16.5 x 0.75 inches each.
These drawings are a series of pictorial scores for vocal calls. Searching for a visual representation of the unseen, I use steel on wood to draw out the sonic spaces that reside within parts of my own body: the head, the nose, the throat, the chest and the base.
