A visual artist and LGBTQ activist, Ahmed Umar was one of the first people in Sudan to come out publicly when the country’s laws still foresaw the death penalty for homosexuality, an experience recounted in the documentary The Art of Sin. Umar’s practice is broad and focused on materials as agents of action. Starting from the conservative education received in Mecca and Sudan, Umar highlights the repercussions of an existence led outside social and cultural norms. Personal experiences and biographical elements become artistic tools to contest the repression, demonization and forced compromises of queer lives in Sudan and in the rest of the world.
