Unbroken Lineages: Traditional & Contemporary Practice of the Islamic Book Arts
- Jamal J. Elias and Twelve Gates Arts
- Department of Religious Studies, Penn Forum for Global Islamic Studies, School of Arts & Sciences
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Community Partnerships Grant
Jamal J. Elias and Twelve Gates Arts will bring three respected artists to Philadelphia for an exhibition-workshop series allowing audiences to experience the main forms of Islamic book arts: calligraphy, illumination & miniature painting. Each artist will teach a one-day workshop at Penn in connection with an exhibition and public lecture at Twelve Gates Arts (12G), Philadelphia’s only contemporary arts space dedicated to South Asian, Southwest Asian/North African (SWANA), and diasporic art. The artists participating in Unbroken Lineages include calligraphy master Nihad Dukhan, illumination artist Behnaz Karjoo and Hoor Sherpao, a visual artist whose practice spans classical and modern Indo-Persian miniature painting, animation, ceramics and installation. The third iteration of the series will feature a group exhibit & panel discussion with artists sharing their ideas about the place of traditional arts in their contemporary work. Unbroken Lineages will both ground participants in important artistic traditions as well as offer perspectives on how West and South Asian diasporic artists claim, re-claim, and extend these arts in contemporary times.