By Sumayya Vally

The inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale is underway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (Biennales are large and prestigious international art exhibitions held every two years.) This important new event for the Muslim world features numerous African artists. And the biennale’s artistic director is Sumayya Vally, a South African architecture professor and principal of Counterspace design studio. A rising star in the art and architecture worlds, Vally was intent on creating the biennale to connect with the diverse experiences of being Muslim through ritual, practices and philosophies. The Conversation Africa asked her five questions about the biennale.

What is the importance of an Islamic biennale?

The field of “Islamic art” was defined by Europeans in the 1800s – and hinged on geography, style and historical chronology. So it was inherited from definitions outside the faith. It’s my hope that this biennale puts forth a different definition of and for Islamic arts – one that recognises Islamic philosophies for our present and future, and one that honours the daily lived experiences of the Muslim world.

It is important that we acknowledge that Islamic faith, Islamic practice and Islamic tradition can and should be making a creative contribution to the world. The biennale’s theme of Awwal Bait refers to the reverence and symbolic unity evoked by the Ka’bah in Makkah (often referred to as the Kaaba shrine in Mecca), the centre of Islamic rituals.

A big part of what this biennale aims to demonstrate is that Islamic practice is rooted in collective rituals and experiences of community and belonging. I believe platforms like this have a role to play in understanding the profound cultural and artistic heritages around us; and in nurturing and promoting understanding between communities.

Why is this significant for African artists?

It is not often that the opportunity comes along for artists to fully immerse themselves in work that is expressly Islamic, or rooted in its rituals, philosophies and practices. In highlighting the diversity of Islamic ways of being, participating African artists contribute to the many notions of what Islam is and can be.

Grammar Of The Earth by Moroccan artists Fatiha Zemmouri and Soukaina Aboulaoula visualises the sound of prayer. Image courtesy Diriyah Biennale Foundation

Could you walk us through the show?

I interpreted the entrance area in the Hajj Terminal of Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport as a reception area for the world – what the city and the site has always been. It’s the gateway to hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage, and the terminal is able to accommodate up to 80,000 pilgrims. For the biennale, it contains an array of contemporary and older artefacts associated with those who service pilgrims.

From there visitors move to the indoor galleries. Their principal theme is that of the sacred direction (qiblah) to which Muslims point in prayer five times a day, every day of the year. And the focus of those rituals, the Ka’aba in Makkah. It describes the construction of our daily spiritual belonging.

Starting in a dimly lit room and ending in a brightly lit space, viewers go on a journey from darkness to light. It moves up in scale. From the call to prayer – sound on the vibrational scale – to the scale of the limbs and the body in prayer. To bodies in gathering – both in life and death. The climax of the exhibition is the scale of infinity – the door of the Ka’aba itself. The works include sound installations, ancient artefacts, religious manuscripts, photographic works and diverse contemporary installations ranging in scale.

In the outside space, within the Hijrah (migration) theme of the biennale, the works reflect on the construction of home and belonging no matter where we are in the world – the building blocks of community created through our rituals of food, sound, festival, time and season, work, worship, memory and imagination.

Many contemporary migrations in our world are synonymous with loss and displacement, and rituals become a remaking of home. Outside, works increase in scale to sculpture and built structures. Each of these is an invitation for an activation. Throughout the biennale, they will host gatherings, performances and discussions.

Could you discuss some of the African works?

It is very hard for me to single out any one piece, as each of them hold their own power in telling a unique, individual story. However, I will share some detail behind just three. Through performance, sculpture and installation, South African tapestry artist Igshaan Adams’ piece Salat al-jama’ah explores aspects of politics, race and religion as they have affected both his personal history and that of his community.

His intricate woven artworks employ a range of natural and synthetic materials, but many draw inspiration for their form and pattern from traditional Islamic textiles. For this work he collected a number of used prayer rugs from close friends and family living in the Bonteheuwel district of Cape Town. In this district, many Black and Coloured families were forcibly moved by the apartheid authorities in the 1960s.

Each rug records the imprint of its owner’s body in the act of prayer over many years. Adams has interpreted these patterns of wear using beads and semiprecious stones to create a series of new textile pieces. They speak of the value of collective worship.

Kolona min Torab by M’barek Bouhchichi uses clay and natural pigments from across Morocco to address diversity. Image courtesy Diriyah Biennale Foundation

The scale and story of Amongst Men by fellow South African artist Haroon Gunn-Salie stands out. He is named after Abdullah Haron, a South African imam (Muslim cleric). An outspoken critic of apartheid, Haron was murdered while in police custody in 1969. His funeral was attended by over 40,000 mourners, acting in defiance of the apartheid authorities.

Developed by Gunn-Salie in collaboration with Haron’s widow, Galiema, and daughter, Fatiema Haron-Masoet, Amongst Men conceptually re-creates this event. A thousand individually suspended kufi caps (headpieces worn by Muslim men across Africa and South Asia) evoke the scene at the Cape Town cemetery where Haron was buried. The accompanying audio includes extracts from one of his sermons and from a poem by his friend, South African writer James Matthews, and the voices of his daughters. Amongst Men invites the onlooker to consider the intersecting histories of Islam and resistance to colonialism and apartheid.

                                    Salat al-jama’ah by Igshaan Adams. Image courtesy Diriyah Biennale Foundation

An installation by Tanzanian artist Lubna Chowdhary celebrates generosity and hospitality in Islam, and communal rituals of eating and praying. Its form – a long, low table – draws on the traditions of the majlis (sitting room), a place where guests are entertained, often sitting on cushions or carpets. As more guests arrive, more carpets are added, symbolising a welcome that can be extended infinitely.

The theme of boundless sharing is reflected in the structure of the table, which is inspired by open-source furniture design.

What have you taken from this experience?

Through the biennale, I hope to convey the timelessness of Islamic thinking and practice, and the diversity and breadth of the Muslim world. The philosophies of the Islamic faith offer the potential to think about the future differently.

The biennale runs until 23 April 2023.

Sumayya Vally is a Honorary Professor of Practice, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Courtesy: The Conversation

By Nimo Omer

It has been three weeks since a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey and north-west Syria. The total death toll now exceeds 46,000 – over 40,000 of whom are in Turkey. A number of cities and towns have been destroyed and at least two million people have lost their homes, prompting the government to set up a makeshift network of tent camps and temporary container homes. On Saturday, Turkey announced that it had ended rescue efforts in all but two of the hardest hit provinces, in the cities of Antakya and Kahramanmaraş.

As time has gone on, shock around the disaster has turned into anger and frustration, with Turkish citizens accusing the government of evading accountability over poor building standards. The delayed and disorganised emergency response has not helped the situation, putting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in an increasingly precarious position as the country heads towards its next general election. I spoke to Dr Karabekir Akkoyunlu, a UK-based expert in Turkish politics and lecturer at SOAS University of London, about the impact the earthquake has had on Erdoğan’s chances for another term in office. That’s right after the headlines.

What was Erdoğan’s position before the earthquake?

Over the last two years, Erdoğan has not been doing well politically. “Even though he has control over the judiciary, the media and the executive, the opposition has managed to form coalitions that work fairly effectively in key moments that have damaged him politically,” Dr Karabekir Akkoyunlu says. “For instance, in the 2019 local elections, they managed to get the municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara out of the hands of the ruling party after 24 years, which was a huge setback for them.”

Erdoğan’s falling popularity has, in large part, been because of Turkey’s weakening economy: the lira has been collapsing in value for years, recently hitting record lows against the dollar. And while inflation has fallen over the last two months, the average person in Turkey is unlikely to feel immediate relief as the country has consistently had some of the highest inflation rates in Europe – in October it reached a 24-year high of 85.5%.

To combat his poor polling, Erdoğan started announcing “last ditch populist measures,” Akkoyunlu says, that he might not be able to deliver. In October he unveiled what he called “the biggest social housing project in the history of the Turkish republic”, promising to build 500,000 new homes. “He started pulling these policies out of the bag even though they would obviously have huge costs for Turkey’s already empty state coffers,” says Akkoyunlu.

What do the public think now?

As buildings that should have been able to withstand the earthquake collapsed, the government has faced scathing criticism about the lack of oversight of construction firms that were allowed to skirt safety regulations in favour of speed and cost. “None of these were hidden things, they were flagged by civil society groups, activists and coalition politicians in the past, but they were oftentimes ignored, or, in certain cases, put in prison because of their activism,” says Akkoyunlu. Now, with a number of Turkish towns and cities reduced to rubble, the focus has moved back to what many are calling systemic corruption.

While public opinion will change as the country starts to rebuild, and Erdoğan likely takes all the credit for getting Turkey back on its feet, the government will not be able to shake this crisis off, like it often has been able to in the past. “From this vantage point of less than two weeks since the disaster, I think the government will not escape unscathed in terms of public opinion. I believe it’s going to lead to a landslide loss in public support,” says Akkoyunlu.

The elections

Erdoğan has made it clear that he has no desire to relinquish control and will do everything that he can to stay in power, and that might not always be within the framework of the democratic process. Currently, the official plans are that the elections will go ahead in May, or at the latest June, and if that happens Erdogan’s prospects do not look good. This is perhaps why he has been pushing ahead with unconstitutional moves to delay the election, saying that Turkey cannot hold an election in these conditions. “But there’s roughly five months until June and elections have been organised regularly in this country in very adverse conditions, so this is a clear attempt to evade accountability,” Akkoyunlu says.

As the centenary of the Turkish republic approaches, this coming election is a critical juncture for the country. Five more years of Erdoğan’s government would mean a further slide towards authoritarianism and cronyism. “This election will determine whether there is a last exit before the bridge for saving Turkish democracy.”

Akkoyunlu also notes that it is important to place Turkey within the global economic system. “Many international organisations have praised the drive of the Turkish economy towards growth and the construction sector has been at the centre of Turkey’s economic boom.” Akkoyunlu adds, “Turkey’s a particular case of what happens when neoliberalism and democratic erosion come together.”

The opposition – a six-party coalition – has it’s own uphill battle to climb, and is yet to announce who will be their presidential candidate. If they win, public institutions could easily still be filled with Erdoğan loyalists, which would make it difficult for them to govern. Or they might inherit hollowed out government departments that are simply not functional. Akkoyunlu says, however, that this is less “about things becoming perfect and more about taking one step to stop the worst from happening.”

Erdoğan’s government came in two decades ago promising to clean up Turkey, after a series of corruption scandals, economic crises, and a devastating earthquake. “I think it’s a very tragic picture,” Akkoyunlu adds. “It seems Turkey has come full circle, and in some ways, in terms of democracy, it has backtracked.”

Courtesy: The Guardian

The entire earth is a mosque for Muslims, but the physical masjid has also played an important spiritual and educational role for Muslims throughout Islamic history. The architectural evolution of mosques is a fascinating journey through time, tracing the development of Islamic art and architecture from the humble beginnings of mud-brick structures to the grandeur and splendor of modern mosques all around the globe.