The 10th Biennial HBK Symposium on Islamic Art examines how art history’s concerns with the global turn, and associated calls for decolonial, diverse, inclusive, and equitable histories, have been taken up by scholars, educators, curators, and related practitioners of Islamic art history.

The Symposium aims to highlight the challenges – and not just successes – of teaching, curating, and researching Islamic art history in a global context, while also contributing new perspectives to discourses on the global turn writ large.

Program schedule:

Saturday, November 11

• 5 pm: Symposium Registration
• 5:30 pm: Symposium Opening
• 5:50 pm: Keynote Address
  • Finbarr Barry Flood, Director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories,
  • William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the Humanities, Institute of Fine Arts & Department of Art History, New York University
  • Discussants: Hala Auji and Radha Dalal
  • Shifting Scales: Islamic Art History as Global Microhistory

The keynote address will be followed by an opening reception at VCUarts Qatar.

Sunday, November 12

• 9:15 am: Symposium Registration and Coffee
• 10 am: Opening Remarks
• 10:15am: Talinn Grigor, Pedagogical Realignment and Hyphenated Historians of Qajar Architecture: Vrdanis Eiwziwkʻchean and Kavasji Kiash in Dialogue
• Introduction: Saif Al-Ansari, Art History Major, VCUarts Qatar
• Discussant: Hala Auji

• 11:20 am: Ellen Kenney, “From the Field”: Islamic Art History, Pedagogical Context,and Global Turns
  • Introduction: Aisha Al-Hardan, Art History Major, VCUarts Qatar
  • Discussant: Jochen Sokoly

• 12:20 pm: Lunch

• 1:30 pm: Roundtable: Theory
  • Kirsten Scheid, Can Islamic Art and Our Practices Be Coeval?
  • Aparna Kumar, Karkhana as Method: Decentering Pedagogy of South Asian Art
  • Aditi Chandra, Re/animating the Subjects of Islamic Art History
  • Introduction: Ashley Botkin, Art History Graduate Student, VCUarts Richmond
  • Discussant: Maggie Unverzagt Goddard

• 3:00pm: Coffee Break
• 3:15pm: Roundtable: Method
  • Negar Habibi, Lack of Scientific Interest or How to Make it Visible: Teaching Islamic Art at the University of Geneva
  • Nebahat Avcıoğlu, Connecting Points
  • Jenny Norton-Wright, Islamic Art Online
  • Introduction: Mary Catherine Langston, Art History Graduate Student, VCUarts Richmond
  • Discussant: Monica Merlin

Monday, November 13

• 10 am: Opening Remarks
• 10:15 am: Sam Bowker, Creating Connection: Islamic Art in Regional Australia
  • Introduction: Nour Tarroun, Art History Major, VCUarts Qatar.
  • Discussant: Radha Dalal
• 11:20am: Karen Exell, The Possibility of an Equitable Art Museum in the 21st-century Gulf
  • Introduction: Dana Al-Kubaisi, Art History Major, VCUarts Qatar.
  • Discussant: Neelima Jeychandran
• 12:20 pm: Lunch
• 1:30 pm: Roundtable: Practice
  • Marika Sardar, Themes, Geographies and Chronologies: Rethinking Displays of Islamic Art in North America.
  • Anissa Rahadiningtyas, The Neglected Dimension – Making an Exhibition of Modern and Contemporary Islamic Art from Southeast Asia
  • Mirjam Shatanawi, Decolonizing Islamic Art Collections
  • Sadia Shirazi, Slo Curating & A Case Study: Rasheed Araeen: Zero to Infinity
  • Introduction: Lauryn Gilliam, Art History Graduate Student, VCUarts Richmond
  • Discussant: Tobias Wofford
• 3 pm: Reception
• 4:15 – 5:45 pm: Roundtable: Curating in a Global Context: Works in Progress
  • Noora Abdulmajeed, The Case of Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World and its
  • Cultural Connections
  • Ranjit Hoskote, Hidden in Plain Sight
  • Vasif Kortun, Hearsay Stories
  • Discussant: Holiday Powers

RELATED: VCUarts Qatar to host tenth biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art

Source and cover image credit: VCU Arts Qatar

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Cassandra Pallagud

Content Writer

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