Nada Abdallah Baynahumā explores the Arabic letter alif as line, a form in continual transition between formation and fragmentation, legibility and abstraction, presence and absence, matter and time. Drawing on a documented corpus of historical Kufic alifs, the work traces the alif as it transforms from line to pixel to point, and vice versa, across stainless steel, plexiglass, paper, textile, stone, and projected light, fragmenting and reconnecting, disappearing and returning.
Reversibility is at the core of the work. No fixed beginning or end, and no single direction of transformation. The line can disperse into pixels and points, while points can gather again into pixel, line, and form. Through shifts in surface, weight, transparency, shadow, and duration, each material reveals a different state of the alif.
Rather than treating fragmentation as loss, Baynahumā considers how the alif can transform without losing its memory. Historical form and contemporary visual language coexist within a continuum of becoming, where the letter is never fixed, but remains in a state of formation, fragmentation, and return.