Where We Gather: An Evening of Urdu Poetry

About Where We Gather: An Evening of Urdu Poetry

An evening of Urdu poetry with Adabi Baithak in alignment with Sobia Ahmad's solo exhibition Entangled Light.

Join us at Hamiltonian Artists for an evening of poetry with Anoosha Imran, co founder of Adabi Baithak, who will lead us in an evening of a traditional baithak, an intimate gathering of Urdu poetry. Baithak is from the Hindi-Urdu word, baithna, meaning "to sit". Traditionally, people have always gathered and shared the human experience of love and loss in the form of poetry, a means for connecting people. This program will be presented in conversation with the work of artist Sobia Ahmad, in alignment with her solo exhibtion Entangled Light.

This program is presented in partnership with Reed Society for the Sacred Arts 501c3 art organization based in Bethesda, Maryland, and was selected from Hamiltonian Artists open call, which invites artists, organizers, and cultural workers to present professional presentations in our U Street gallery space.

ABOUT THE EXHIBTION:
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.

Image credit: "Dancing Dervishes", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album Calligrapher Mir 'Ali Haravi recto: ca. 1610; verso: ca. 1530–50. The Metropolitan Museum of New York.