Artful Immersion: Interlocking Rhythms of Time in Muslim Life

MacDowell had the honor of hosting Zain Alam for the season kickoff of MacDowell Downtown in Peterborough. During the presentation, Alam discussed the development of his series, Meter & Light, which has evolved through artist residencies with Muslim communities in New York and Morocco, as well as through a broader creative journey spanning film, music, and academia.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this special evening, which concluded with refreshments and delicious bites prepared by Chef Erik and the talented MacDowell Kitchen Team—an opportunity for guests to continue the conversation and celebrate the start of a new Downtown season together.

Zain Alam (’26) is an artist and composer of Indian-Pakistani origin, raised outside of Atlanta and based in NYC. Sound is the central organizing principle in his practice, threading through a body of work across video, performance, and installation. His practice emerges from a lifelong question: in what ways can sound convey the ineffable? Alam explores in particular the distance between what is expressible in one language but lies just beyond the pale of translation in another, with faith in the power of rhythm, timbre, and tone to transcend meaning alone.