Little is known about the cosmic dawn, the period when the first stars, galaxies and black holes were formed. Astrophysicists study it by searching for these earliest radio waves, emitted several billion years ago and obscured by ancient hydrogen clouds.

At the heart of this body of work is another nightly search for light and yearning for dawn, an entreaty to not just find light—whatever that looks like to you— but to become it too. Rather than an event or a finite state that can be reached it is an ongoing quest and one that arguably motivates the history of humanity regardless of scientific, cultural, or spiritual beliefs.

And Make Me Light draws upon the supplication, Du’aa An-Nur, which calls for Divine light to be instilled into one’s heart and senses, magnified and amplified: body and mind, spirit and soul, awareness, and consciousness, and all around in every direction.

The words of the prayer are hand-embroidered and beaded onto over 800 pieces to make up the kaleidoscopic installation.