I HAD HEARD about Lydia Ourahmane long before setting out to write about her curiously affecting art, had heard about her improbable backstory as the child of an Algerian father and a Malaysian Chinese mother who had fallen in love at a school for evangelical Christians in the UK. I’d seen images of her work, too invitingly minimalist installations perfumed by mystery, chaos, and accident. Our wide-ranging conversations began in the pandemic’s second year, and before long I had grown accustomed to the artist’s elliptical, zigzag patter. The vibe was both history lesson and séance, a seamless