Zain Alam is an artist and composer of Indian & Pakistani origin born in Flushing, Queens and raised outside of Atlanta, Georgia. His work emerges from a lifelong question: in what ways can sound convey the ineffable? He contemplates especially the distance between the effable in one language and what lies beyond translation to another—the power of rhythm and tone transcending meaning alone. His interdisciplinary work is guided by his training as a musician and as a student of Islamic art.
Described as “a unique intersection, merging the cinematic formality of Bollywood and geometric repetition of Islamic art,” Alam’s recording project Humeysha began during his year working as an oral historian for 1947 Partition Archive. Across video, performance, and installation, sound remains the central organizing principle in Alam’s practice, in addition to commissions in film, sculpture, and design.
Alam’s writing has been published in Miami Rail and the New Yorker, and his work featured in Vice, Village Voice, and the New York Times. His performances have been staged at Webster Hall, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the Rubin Foundation. As a 2023 NYSCA Composer/Compositions awardee, Alam has shown numerous iterations of the sound/performance work I am sounding a sacred space, an extension and departure from Alvin Lucier, using the azaan as voiced from various Muslim traditions.
Alam studied at Wesleyan University and completed his graduate work in Islamic studies at Harvard University. He is a 2024 Nawat Fes artist-in-residence in Morocco completing the installation project Meter & Light: Day, slated for exhibition at Asian Arts Initiative and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts this summer.