this season’s featured artist
marah ahmed
Best known for her non-linear multimedia work, artist and filmmaker Mara Ahmed produces documentaries, soundscapes, and artwork that trespass political borders and challenge colonial logics.
Mara was born in Lahore and educated in Belgium, Pakistan, and the US. Her art practice reflects these displacements and multiplicities.
She has directed and produced four films, including The Muslims I Know (2008), Pakistan One on One (2011), A Thin Wall (2015) and Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation (2023). Her films have been broadcast on PBS and screened at international film
festivals. She is currently working on The Injured Body, a documentary about racism in America that focuses on the voices of women of color. Mara's artwork has been exhibited in group and solo shows in New York and California.
She was awarded a NYSCA grant in 2023, through the Statewide Community Regrant Program administered by the Huntington Arts Council, for her interdisciplinary project, Return to Sender. In 2020-21, Mara was honored to be one of the featured changemakers in RMSC’s exhibit, The Changemakers: Rochester Women Who Changed the World. The exhibit highlighted stories of women visionaries and trailblazers from Rochester.
Her websites are MaraAhmedStudio.com and NeelumFilms.com. You can follow her on Instagram: @__maraahmed
return to sender
women of color in colonial postcards & politics of Representation
exhibit runs january 27-april 19,2025
artist reception
april 2, 2025
1:00pm-3:00pm
an art exhibition by artist mara ahmen, inspired by her film of the same name,features photographs and digital collages that offer deeper historical context and expand on the themes explored in both the film and exhibition.
Click on link for exhibit catalogue
The work
