JAH Qube’s materia prima transforms the Aga Khan Park into a vessel of light

JAH Qube, materia prima, 2026. Aluminum, rip-stop nylon, light. Centre Pool, Aga Khan Park, Toronto. Photo: Raheel Azim

A glowing form of aluminum and tent fabric floats on the Park’s central pool, unfolding like a bloom on the water

materia prima by JAH Qube, shown at night in front of the Ismaili Center, both architecture and sculpture glowing from within — “materia prima” was designed using tent fabric to embody the inner glow of the nearby Ismaili Center. Photo by Michael Nguyen.

Rising from the centre pool of the Aga Khan Park, a faceted crystal of light unfolds into a bloom of cupolas. materia prima , a new installation by Toronto studio JAH Qube, premiered at Nuit Blanche 2026 as the featured outdoor work of the Aga Khan Museum’s programme Sacred and Profane, curated by Amirali Alibhai. It remains on view in the Park through November 3, 2026.

The starting point was the building next door. Javid Jah was looking at the Ismaili Centre’s glass dome glowing from within at dusk and wondered if fabric could achieve this kind of ethereal illumination—which is why the piece is made from the material of tents rather than the material of monuments.

In fact, nylon tent fabric not only unveils a quality about light, it also reflects the quality of water. In itself water-repellent, the fabric reflects the ever-changing nature of water as it sways with the wind. When its inner illumination peaks at night, the water acts as a pair of sunglasses for our eyes, dimming the presence of the sculpture so one can experience its structure.

The nylon is drawn taut over a CNC-cut aluminum frame; the geometry is an icosahedron opening into a series of domes aligned to the Park’s central axis.

Dusk view of the floating sculpture "materia prima" on the central pool of Aga Khan Park. Photo by Michael Nguyen. — The subtle illumination from a series of internal lights make the tent fabric appear as a veil, revealing an internal source and yet concealing its structure.

For JAH Qube — the partnership of artist-architect Javid Jah and maker Alex Akbari — the geometry is the point. In the alchemical tradition, materia prima is the primordial substance regarded as the matter of the soul: the material contained in all things and, paradoxically, containing all things. The installation gives that paradox a built form.

“Art is the imitation of nature in her mode of operation”

— Titus Burckhardt, Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul, 1960

In the daytime, the tent fabric appears solid and monolithic, embodying the color and presence of the Ag Khan Museum. Photo by Raheel Azim — materia prima in the day time reads as a solid monolithic form much like the Aga Khan Museum. Photo by Raheel Azim.

“We made this at a moment when it’s genuinely hard to know what’s true. So much of what we encounter now is mediated, contested, or deliberately confused. materia prima is an attempt to offer the opposite: an experience where seeing gives you a kind of absolute knowledge — a knowing that goes past the senses, to something deep in each of us that is at once individual and collective. In the Islamic tradition we call that fitrah — the primordial essence present within every human being.”

— Javid Jah, artist-architect, JAH Qube

Day and night video footage of “materia prima” show how the tent fabric transforms as the sun sets and the internal lights appear. Shot and edited by Michael Nguyen. Original sound by Waleed Abdul-hamid.