Umber Majeed
Zoom in and Saath Haath (Hands Together), 2024-5
Mixed media on paper and web-based augmented reality animation
35 in by 23 in for each drawing
 
These drawings launch virtual animations that extend into the gallery space from the drawings, revealing a tension between analog and digital space. While the author's hand is often erased or automated in technology, Majeed captures moments when those systems are co-opted, break down, or glitch to reveal internal mechanics. For zoom in, a map of the pre-Partition Indian subcontinent first appears and then splits. India floats away and only the outline of the then-West and East Pakistan remains. In Majeed’s Trans-Pakistan universe, borders and geopolitics are made endlessly mutable. Questioning how South Asian bodies are compressed, extracted, or archived both within a digital realm and in the shifting nature of nationhood, Majeed visualizes emancipatory possibilities that may be too difficult to imagine within the constraints of the physical world. AR programming and coding: Danielle McPhatter