Interest in Islamic art and culture growing
A host of museum initiatives is aiming to boost knowledge of Islamic cultures. By Gareth Harris
Against the backdrop of turmoil and destruction in Syria and Iraq, projects to help people understand and enjoy Islamic art and culture are gaining momentum across the UK.
The British Museum recently announced plans to open the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World in late 2018. It will feature glass, metalwork, ceramics, miniature paintings and other items dating from the beginning of Islam in the seventh century to today.
Meanwhile, the heritage organisation Historic England is undertaking a survey on the development of mosques in Britain. In March, Arts Council England (ACE) announced a three-year, £123,662 Museum Resilience Fund award to the Subject Specialist Network for Islamic Art and Material Culture.
The network, founded in 2013, is led by Rebecca Bridgman, the curator of Islamic and South Asian art at Birmingham Museums Trust. One of its initiatives is to map UK collections of Islamic art and material culture.
The main development linked to the ACE award is the creation of a Specialist Support Scheme to provide regional museums with a toolkit to “help them unlock the potential of their collections of Islamic art”, says Bridgman.
Specialist support of up to £5,025 will be available for each institution. The scheme will be delivered on a region by region basis, beginning this financial year in the West Midlands and South-East.
Bridgman and Venetia Porter, the curator of the Islamic collections at the British Museum, say that the initiatives reflect a hunger to learn about the cultures of the Islamic world. Both stress that previous Islamic art shows at the British Museum and Birmingham Museums Trust have drawn new black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) audiences.
Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, held at the British Museum in 2012, targeted a new demographic, says Porter. According to a survey, 47% of visitors were Muslim, with 39% of all visitors describing themselves as Sunni, and 66% of visits to the exhibition were by members of BAME communities.
“We learned a lot from our experience of the Hajj exhibition as to what interests our audiences about Islam, and we hope to build on that,” Porter says.
Qalam: the Art of Beautiful Writing, an Islamic calligraphy exhibition that opened at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in November 2013, doubled BAME audiences.
Other organisations are continuing to strengthen relationships with local Muslim communities.
The partnership between the Open Museum in Glasgow and the Muslim Elderly Day Care Centre at Glasgow Central Mosque, which began 15 years ago, is among those that are flourishing.
Objects on show at the mosque are drawn from Glasgow Museums’ Islamic art collections. The mosque has the largest and most culturally diverse Muslim audience, with Asians and North Africans among its attendees, say curators at Glasgow Museums.
Projects at the mosque have also focused on members of the community who are part of Glasgow’s industrial history. One example is a film, Journeys to Glasgow, currently showing at the Riverside Museum, which tells the story of Asian men’s contribution to the city’s transport sector.
Museum projects aim to throw light on complex issues around Islam, says Sussan Babaie, a lecturer in Iranian and Islamic art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. “The initiatives are crucial to our learning about the civilisations of Islam, with historically supported and culturally sensitive perspectives provided by learning from different angles,” she says.
For Bridgman, sharing knowledge and expertise about Islamic collections is about reflecting Birmingham Museums Trust’s audiences.“It’s important to question whether museums are representative of all of British society,” she says.
• Muslim communities in museums will be one of the sessions at the this year’s MA conference in Birmingham (5-6 November)
The British Museum recently announced plans to open the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World in late 2018. It will feature glass, metalwork, ceramics, miniature paintings and other items dating from the beginning of Islam in the seventh century to today.
Meanwhile, the heritage organisation Historic England is undertaking a survey on the development of mosques in Britain. In March, Arts Council England (ACE) announced a three-year, £123,662 Museum Resilience Fund award to the Subject Specialist Network for Islamic Art and Material Culture.
The network, founded in 2013, is led by Rebecca Bridgman, the curator of Islamic and South Asian art at Birmingham Museums Trust. One of its initiatives is to map UK collections of Islamic art and material culture.
The main development linked to the ACE award is the creation of a Specialist Support Scheme to provide regional museums with a toolkit to “help them unlock the potential of their collections of Islamic art”, says Bridgman.
Specialist support of up to £5,025 will be available for each institution. The scheme will be delivered on a region by region basis, beginning this financial year in the West Midlands and South-East.
Bridgman and Venetia Porter, the curator of the Islamic collections at the British Museum, say that the initiatives reflect a hunger to learn about the cultures of the Islamic world. Both stress that previous Islamic art shows at the British Museum and Birmingham Museums Trust have drawn new black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) audiences.
Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, held at the British Museum in 2012, targeted a new demographic, says Porter. According to a survey, 47% of visitors were Muslim, with 39% of all visitors describing themselves as Sunni, and 66% of visits to the exhibition were by members of BAME communities.
“We learned a lot from our experience of the Hajj exhibition as to what interests our audiences about Islam, and we hope to build on that,” Porter says.
Qalam: the Art of Beautiful Writing, an Islamic calligraphy exhibition that opened at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in November 2013, doubled BAME audiences.
Other organisations are continuing to strengthen relationships with local Muslim communities.
The partnership between the Open Museum in Glasgow and the Muslim Elderly Day Care Centre at Glasgow Central Mosque, which began 15 years ago, is among those that are flourishing.
Objects on show at the mosque are drawn from Glasgow Museums’ Islamic art collections. The mosque has the largest and most culturally diverse Muslim audience, with Asians and North Africans among its attendees, say curators at Glasgow Museums.
Projects at the mosque have also focused on members of the community who are part of Glasgow’s industrial history. One example is a film, Journeys to Glasgow, currently showing at the Riverside Museum, which tells the story of Asian men’s contribution to the city’s transport sector.
Museum projects aim to throw light on complex issues around Islam, says Sussan Babaie, a lecturer in Iranian and Islamic art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. “The initiatives are crucial to our learning about the civilisations of Islam, with historically supported and culturally sensitive perspectives provided by learning from different angles,” she says.
For Bridgman, sharing knowledge and expertise about Islamic collections is about reflecting Birmingham Museums Trust’s audiences.“It’s important to question whether museums are representative of all of British society,” she says.
• Muslim communities in museums will be one of the sessions at the this year’s MA conference in Birmingham (5-6 November)