Umarah Rahim — Photographer

Umarah Rahim,
Photographer

I photograph what institutions try to erase. My work belongs to the people in it before it reaches any audience.

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BFA Visual Media, Rochester Institute of Technology
Applying to MFA Photography programs for 2025

Selected Work

Recent Projects

Dupatta

Cyanotype on fabric — 2020-present

Dupatta

Cyanotypes printed on dupattas - the garment designed to conceal women. Portraits of women in Lucknow and Rochester printed on fabric they keep.

MLK Pole / Baseline

Gelatin silver prints, recorded audio — 2019-present

MLK Pole / Baseline

Five years with Rochester's displaced community at the Martin Luther King Jr. Pole. 63 portraits, 30 hours of audio, landscapes as psychological correlates.

Mathematics of Bangles

Salt prints — 2023

Mathematics of Bangles

Salt prints tracking the collapse of equality promised to girls before arranged marriage. Six images, symmetry breaks.

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Darkroom process
Why This Work

Photographing interiority that systems suppress

I work with communities under institutional pressure—women restricted by tradition, displaced people the city wants invisible. The work documents what gets erased: intellectual lives hidden behind dupattas, five years of community at a pole downtown, the physical sensation of absorbing racism in silence.Material processes embed meaning. Community ownership determines access. The work is useful before it's art.Learn More

Let's create something together

Available for commissions, exhibitions, and collaborations.Get in Touch