This month, Ray launches “Entangled Portals” at Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts, as well appearing in Dr. Amy Hale’s global survey on contemporary art and magic.
Entangled Portals at Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts
On October 22, 2026, Professor Sharmistha Ray will unveil Entangled Portals, a site-specific vinyl installation spanning three windows of Fondren Library at Rice University. Commissioned as part of the Moody Center for the Arts’ Platform series, Ray’s installation draws inspiration from the university’s Archives of the Impossible (AOTI), a rare collection of documents, recordings, and diagrams on unexplained aerial phenomena and alien encounters founded by religious studies scholar Jeffrey J. Kripal. As a queer, nonbinary immigrant, Ray treats the concept of the “alien” as a metaphor for inhabiting multiple worlds and identities beyond fixed cultural categories. Entangled Portals proposes that geometry and mathematical patterns offer a shared language across species and realms. The exhibition runs through January 29, 2027, launching with an opening performance by dancer Jasmine Hearn and collaborators.
“Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art”
Also this month, Ray’s feminist art collective Hilma’s Ghost is among 45 international artists featured in “Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art,” a major new volume by scholar Dr. Amy Hale published by Tate Publishing. The book launches on October 20 at Tate Modern in London with a special panel conversation between Hale and writer Jamie Sutcliffe. Charting the intersection of esoteric philosophy and contemporary art over the past two decades, the book highlights artists who utilize esoteric methodologies, ancestral knowledge, and ritual practices as active creative tools.
Image: Sharmistha Ray, Entangled Portals (detail), 2026