Converting Light Into Idea

Lina Gazzaz’s Converting Light Into Idea (2022) is an examination of the process of vision, both physiologically and spiritually. Gazzaz presents her glass sculptures on steel tables, referencing the practice of treating hot glass on steel surfaces.

“In your light, I learn how to love. In your beauty how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.” – Rumi

“Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. A parable of his light is a niche wherein is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, the glass as it were a glittering star lit from a blessed olive tree, neither Eastern nor Western, whose oil almost lights up, though fire should not touch it. Light upon light. Allah guides to his light whomever he wishes. Allah draws parables for mankind, and Allah has knowledge of all things.” – The Qur’an, Al-Nour

“In quantum physics, the observer and the system being viewed were inexplicably intertwined, such that the outcomes of any observation appeared to be partially controlled by the observer’s real decisions. This condition is reflected by the wave function, a complex-domain function that incorporates information about both the universe as a whole and the observer’s apparent level of knowledge.” – Theresa M. Scott