One of the world’s most prestigious events on the Islamic art and architecture calendar, the 8th Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, will take place at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar) in Education City on November 10 and 11.
The symposium takes place every two years and this year’s theme is, “The Seas and the Mobility of Islamic Art.”
It will include eminent scholars such as Avinoam Shalem, the Riggio professor of the arts of Islam at the Columbia University; Prita Meier, associate professor of African Art History at New York University; Esra Akcan, associate professor in the Department of Architecture at Cornell University; Jessica Hallett, the curator, Early Modern Middle East at Calouste Gulbenkian Museum; and George Lane, senior teaching fellow, from SOAS University of London.
Panel discussions will take place on subjects such as Islamic Art in the 11th-14th century Chinese port cities, Muslim-centred design, and architecture in the 20th and 21st centuries, Ibn Battuta’s maritime adventures, pilgrimage and transfer of craftsmanship from South Asia to the Hijaz, Islamic connections between India and China during the Song and Yuan Periods, Islam and identity in new master-planned cities: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, and Islamic art and material culture in East Asia.
The symposium co-chairs will be VCUarts Qatar art history professors Dr Radha Dalal, Dr Jochen Sokoly, and Dr Sean Roberts.
The art history programme at VCUarts Qatar is the only undergraduate degree programme of its kind in the Gulf region.
The symposium will include an exhibition at the University’s Gallery, titled, “The Sea is the Limit”. The exhibition will bring together works by international artists who are addressing the issues of refugees, borders, migration and national identity. The opening reception will take place on November 10 at 5.30pm and the exhibition will run until December 7.
