CHART Talks Podcast: Ahmed Umar & Mariam Elnozahy

Hands, prayer and ancestry according to Ahmed Umar

Listen back to a conversation between Ahmed Umar and Mariam Elnozahy recorded live as part of the Talks Programme at CHART 2025.

For this episode of the CHART Talks podcast, we are happy to share a recording of a conversation between the Norwegian-Sudanese artist Ahmed Umar and Mariam Elnozahy, researcher, writer and Artistic Director of Konsthall C in Stockholm.

Together they explore Umar's series Glowing Phalanges, presented at CHART 2025 by OSL contemporary and previously exhibited at Kunstnernes Hus and Bergens Kunsthall. Umar reflects on growing up between Sudan and Saudi Arabia, his early training in painting, printmaking, and ceramics, and how his practice gradually shifted toward sculpture.

They also discuss Umar’s performance practice, including his enactment of the Sudanese bridal dance, and how deeply personal artistic gestures can challenge colonial narratives, confront cultural expectations, and honor ancestors. Working largely alone, Umar describes his process as a form of intimate ritual, creating works that function as prayers for himself, his lineage, and the histories he carries.

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