Ahmed Umar is a Sudanese multidisciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in the spiritual and ethical sensibilities of his Sufi upbringing.
Engaging with traditions of ritual, embodiment, and devotion, Ahmed draws on these frameworks to reflect on queerness beyond identity or transgression.
In his work, he approaches it as a generative mode of relationality, discipline, and becoming — an interpretation that bridges personal narrative, spiritual inquiry, and cultural memory.
Through this lens, Ahmed's practice explores the intersections of faith, selfhood, and the politics of belonging within postcolonial and diasporic contexts.
We speak to the artist about faith, memory, and resistance, and about how art can hold space for dignity, hope, and belonging in times of rupture and exile. The New Arab: Growing up in a Sudanese Sufi family, you describe a world in which ritual, embodiment, and devotion were central forms of knowledge. Your work continues to draw on that spiritual framework, exploring queerness not as transgression or identity, but as a practice of relation, discipline, and becoming. How do these elements come together in your practice and lived experience? Ahmed Umar: I have always understood that knowledge is transmitted through discipline, repetition, bodily memory, and collective ritual. Devotion is practised with the body as much as with language — something deeply rooted in Sufi influence. This understanding shapes how I think about queerness as a continuous process of relating to others and working on oneself.
In Sufi traditions, the self is often understood as evolving — refined, questioned, and transformed in relation to others and the divine. You learn to be more present, more ethical, more open and inclusive.
For me, queerness can operate in a similar way — as a practice of attentiveness, of listening to vulnerability, contradiction, and desire, and learning to live with them rather than attempting to erase them. My work draws from this parallel: queerness as discipline, care, devotion, and embodied fluidity. The revolution of 2018–2019 opened a horizon of collective possibility that has since been violently curtailed. What responsibilities — or limits — does art have in this post-revolutionary moment? The post-revolutionary period in Sudan is one of grief, exhaustion, and suspension. I don't believe art can replace political action or offer institutional solutions. But I do believe it can hold space — space for mourning, for memory, and for imagining otherwise when language and politics fail.
At such moments, art becomes ethical witnessing. It resists both nostalgia and paralysis. For me, it's about acknowledging loss without surrendering dignity. Sometimes, simply holding space is itself a form of resistance. Your work resists the humanitarian or crisis-driven imagery through which Sudan is often seen internationally. How do you express hope as a political stance without falling into sentimentality or spectacle? Hope isn't optimism — it's an ethical position. I aim to articulate hope without turning struggle into sentiment or performance. My work avoids dramatic resolution, allowing honesty and emotion to remain.
I often use objects that evoke care and protection — amulets, textiles — drawing on the strength and collectivity of Sudanese traditions rather than explicit depictions of suffering.
Central to my work is a refusal to contribute to a visual economy that frames Sudan through pity or catastrophe. To insist on agency, even in darkness, is its own act of defiance. You contributed to the essay This Arab Is Queer , sharing a deeply personal story shaped by secrecy, guilt, and eventual self-acceptance. In your chapter of the book edited by Elias Jahshan , you say, "I grew up in a society where personal behaviours and individual freedoms were narrowed down to a couple of accepted ways of being (...). Making art provided me with the symbols I used to code my thoughts. It helped me to create a universe where I am the ultimate leader of my being and destiny - an imaginary universe where my voice is neither censored nor restricted". In a world marked by Islamophobia and anti-queer sentiment, your work pushes against binaries and offers tools for self-emancipation. What challenges does this bring while living in the West? Living in the West while carrying Sudan within me is both a privilege and a negotiation. My work is often read through binaries I resist — religion versus queerness, Africa versus Europe, tradition versus modernity. Navigating these projections requires constant translation, and sometimes, refusal.
What I miss most about home is not a place, but a rhythm: the intimacy of everyday life, shared humour, the density of social interaction, the way memory circulates collectively. Yet distance has allowed me to reclaim myself more fully, to hold my Sudanese heritage and queerness as part of the same experience rather than in conflict.
In a world increasingly shaped by fear and polarisation, I aim to work from connection rather than opposition. If my practice offers anything, I hope it's a way to unlearn shame, build tenderness, and imagine freedom without erasing where we come from. Alba Nabulsi is a Palestinian-Italian journalist, lecturer, and translator based in Padua, Italy Follow her on Instagram: @nabulsi_girl_in_italy