Commissioned for the Ismaili Center, Houston, Rana Begum’s Reflectors creates a remarkable experience of color, texture, and movement that blurs the boundaries between architecture and sculpture. It is a monumental work that recalls both geometric tile patterns used in traditional Islamic architecture as well as the formal minimalism of Texas-based artist Donald Judd (1928-1994), who also experimented with grids of colored, industrial materials. Reflectors provides a liminal frontier that is both static and moving, installed in the plane of a wall and activated by the gait and movements of the viewer. If bicycle reflectors were designed to move through space reflecting ambient light to protect the cyclist through visibility, here it is the viewer who moves through space, creating their own light-fed experience of the work.
Begum also plays with scale: Each reflector member of the grid contains within it a small, square grid or hexagonal pattern in plastic that increases the reflective surface area, effectively magnifying its function. Though using industrial materials, the designer of the bicycle reflector drew upon patterns found in nature, such as the close-packed cells of a honeycomb, reminding us of the natural, earth-bound origins of all things including those made by machines. This work was commissioned in consideration of other monumental works of art in Houston that engage with light, including James Turrell’s Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the Rothko Chapel.