Express Newark welcomes multimedia artist Younes Baba Ali as its first international Artist-in-Residence. Baba Ali is a Moroccan-born artist based in Brussels who engages the public by mixing technology, objects, sound, video, and photography with political, social, and ecological issues. Throughout his residency, he is developing a two-part installation, “Carroussa Sonore,” which translates to “sounding cart,” that engages those who live and work in Newark. Local artists and students work closely with Baba Ali to create site-specific sound artworks performed throughout Newark neighborhoods by street vendors and performance artists. “Carroussa Sonore” departs from a religious act and becomes an intervention that archives urban soundscapes, abstract noises, and alternative narratives throughout the African Diaspora.
Powers of the Unseen kicks off Express Newark’s year-long exhibition program, Ritual. Ritual extends the conversation initiated by the Powers of the Unseen by featuring works by artists, curatirs, students, and community members who’ve immersed themselves in nonsecular expressions of spirituality and Islamic traditions across the Muslim world.
These works begin in Newark, which has long been home to one of our nation’s largest African American Muslim communities, while also branching out beyond the domestic borders of the United States to unite menbers of the global community.
Across in the Windows Gallery, “Sacred Rugs: Contemplation, Hope, Resilience” showcases the work of fourteen students who completed the fall 2024 class, “Problems in Contemporary Art: Ritual.” The course, led by Assistant Director of SHINE Portrait Studio, Anthony Alvarez, encouraged Rutgers students to develop critical insights informed by Elsayed’s artistic practice and to design and create new rugs. Together, Alvarez and Elsayed urged students to consider the prayer rug as a medium for contemplation, hope, and resilience, inspiring them to envision aesthetic futures that challenge fear and despair.
“Subtle Centers,” an immersive installation imagined by SHINE Portrait Studio artist-in-residence Dahlia Elsayed, in collaboration with artist Andrew Demirjian. This immersive installation meditates on the permeability between interiorities and exteriorities, prompting visitors to imagine a space between the physical and spiritual worlds collectively. Transforming the Box Gallery into an invented outdoor courtyard featuring mirrored reflections, moving sounds, and tangible objects, the space offers an invitation from the material world for greater comprehension and interpretation of the immaterial.
Photographer Nzingah Oyo is presenting “Woven Prayers,” in which the artist captures large-scale portraits in front of hand-sewn prayer rugs to contemplate the complexities of faith, hope, and connection in a world yearning for meaning. Activating across the entire second floor of Express Newark, Oyo invites members from the local Muslim community to participate in the portrait sessions held in the SHINE Portrait Studio.