INFO

At the heart of the installation lies In the Light of Ay Khanum, which uses contemporary technology to reveal the lost logic of an ancient sundial. An artificial sun illuminates and refracts a replica of the sundial of Ay Khanum, an artifact now held by the National Museum of Afghanistan. The work brings light back to an object whose original function can no longer be experienced directly, given that access to it is restricted and its current condition and location are uncertain.

In this constructed environment, time is neither stable nor singular. The work re-enacts the day of Mohammadi’s assumed birth as a continuous twelve-minute loop, condensing an entire day into mere moments. Through the simulated movement of the Afghan sun, the installation shifts the spatial frame from Nijmegen to Kabul simultaneously, collapsing geographical and temporal distance into a single unfolding environment.

At the apex of the sundial, where a shadow reader once marked the passing of the hours, the gap is filled with glass containing an imprint of a walnut. Before the rise of the Taliban, Mohammadi’s family cultivated walnut trees in Afghanistan, a fruit deeply embedded in the region’s agricultural and cultural life. The walnut serves as a symbol of absence, representing a wider disconnection from cultural heritage and the challenges of maintaining continuity when access is interrupted.