Community engagement and social justice
Site-specific and integrated art
2-D art, including murals, mosaic, photography, etc.
Pittsburgh Creative Corps Artist Directory
Sobia Ahmad
Primary Discipline
Artistic Practice
Digital / photography
Textile / fabric / weaving
Site-specificity determines materials used
Stay Awhile, 2023, vinyl adhesive from scan of 120mm film, 25′ x 12.’ Commissioned by Silver Eye Center for Photography and Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, Pittsburgh, PA.
Small Identities, 2017 – ongoing, ID photos of Muslim immigrants on ceramic tiles and anonymous interviews.
Marking Here(s), 2020 – ongoing, socially engaged mail weaving art project, mixed media.
wherever you are is called Here (non-flags/counter-flags/anti-flags), 2019, screen print and photo weaving on rice bags, twelve non-flags (14″ x 25″ each).
The Breath Within the Breath (Accordian Book), 2024, inkjet print on archival Japanese asuka paper, 30′ long.
About the Artist
Sobia Ahmad is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in public health. Ahmad was born and raised in Pakistan and moved to the United States at the age of fourteen. She holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University (2024), a BS in Community Health (2015), and a BA in Studio Art (2016), both from the University of Maryland College Park.
Ahmad’s work explores the transcendental power of everyday experiences, objects, and rituals through film, photography, and social practice. She draws from South Asian Sufi mysticism, its poetry, and oral storytelling traditions to explore notions of Oneness and interconnectedness. Often made in domestic and social spaces, her process-based work examines relationality, embodied knowledge, material experimentation, and DIY ethos. Using analog methods such as eco-friendly photochemical techniques, weaving, and participatory workshops, she explores how slowness and tactility activate our inner lives and enhance socio-political and ecological engagement.
Ahmad’s socially engaged and participatory projects center themes of introspection, social connection, and political and ecological engagement. They draw from her experiences serving diverse communities as a public health worker and the domestic and social spaces of her childhood in Pakistan. She has created public artworks and designed workshop-based projects for various groups. Her project “Marking Here(s)”, she developed as a mail weaving art project for a teaching invitation at the University of Maryland during the early pandemic, has transformed into an ongoing workshop-based offering. She’s been invited to lead these workshops at universities and arts centers across the country, and for employees of a nonprofit in DC as a team-building and wellness activity.
For the last few years, her film, photography, and public art projects have centered on Pando, a forest of one tree interconnected by a single immense root system, spanning 106 acres in Utah. In 2023, she was commissioned by Silver Eye Center for Photography and Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership to create a large-scale public art photograph related to Pando, installed at 817 Liberty Avenue.
Photo by Chris Fenzi
Web
Accreditations, Certifications, and/or Awards
- Keystone Award, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Fellowship ’25, 2025;
- The Pittsburgh Foundation: Exposure Artist Grant, PA, 2024-25;
- Emerging Visions Public Art Commission, Silver Eye Center for Photography and Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, 2023;
- NextNOW Fest, Visual Arts Alumni Commission Award and Teaching Invitation, University of Maryland College Park, MD, 2020;
- Allies for Justice Award, Asian Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project, Washington, D.C., 2019
Provides Fabrication Services to Other Artists
No
Teaching Artist
Yes, all ages
Joined the Directory
May 2025
Related
PROJECT
Pittsburgh Creative Corps
Designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pittsburgh Creative Corps initiative engages artists and creative workers to activate the public realm while providing economic opportunity.
“Public art, for me, is a way to engage audiences beyond the gallery or institutional space—through workshops at schools and nonprofits, self-initiated projects with individuals and advocacy groups, and temporary or permanent installations in public spaces.”
Sobia Ahmad
Contact the Artist
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Related
PROJECT
Pittsburgh Creative Corps
Designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pittsburgh Creative Corps initiative engages artists and creative workers to activate the public realm while providing economic opportunity.
