150 Yrs of Building Bridges to Islam Thru Art

AHRAM ONLINE
By Ati Metwaly

Noor Ali Chagani, Life Line, 2010 Terracotta bricks, nylon wires

UNITED KINGDOM - The Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in London has one of the greatest collections of Islamic art from the Middle East in the world. Soon after the museum’s foundation in 1852 they started the collection process. The V&A Museum is [also] one of the hosts of the exhibition from the Jameel Prize 2011, an international award for contemporary artists and designers inspired by Islamic art, craft and design. Its aim is to explore the relationship between Islamic traditions of art, craft and design and contemporary work as part of a wider debate about Islamic culture and its role today. The prize, which was initiated in 2009, after the formation of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic art inaugurated in July 2006 at the V&A Museum in London, and funded by Mohammad Abdul Latif Jameel, is awarded every two years. “There is no complicated criteria for the choice of works submitted to Jameel Prize,” Salma Tuqan, the exhibition’s co-curator told Ahram Online. “The only criteria are that submitted works must have been made in the past five years and inspired by Islamic traditions.” [link]