Elegy and Alchemy of Hope

2026

NARS Foundation
New York, NY

Alhamra Arts Center
Lahore, Pakistan

Koel Gallery
Karachi, Pakistan

Elegy and Alchemy of Hope

Gilgit-Baltistan, in northern Pakistan, holds some of the highest mountain peaks in the world and the longest glaciers outside the polar regions. It is also among the regions most vulnerable to climate change, its glaciers melting and its communities bearing the cost. Hiking through the Karakoram, I photographed its peaks, ridges, and rock faces. These photographs become the material of this work.

In Elegy and Alchemy of Hope, triangular fragments of the Karakoram reconfigure into a spine: vertical, rising. The cuts follow the geometry the mountains already hold, their peaks, fault lines, and strata, revealing the sacred geometry within the land. Fragments from different parts of the landscape gather into new wholes. Digitally shifted colors transform the terrain into something fantastical, while gold leaf turns the earthen into the sacred.

The work holds two gestures at once. It is an elegy, mourning landscapes threatened by climate destruction. It is also a celebration, honoring their majestic beauty. Between the two, the form reaches upward toward hope.

This is the alchemy at the heart of my practice: cutting, dissolving, reassembling, gilding. Threatened landscapes transmute into Landscapes of Imagining. In Urdu, kul (کل) means both yesterday and tomorrow. Here, past and future coalesce, and new worlds rise from the wreckage of the old.

© 2014-2026 Sarah Ahmad. All Rights Reserved.