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Pillars of Light
Highlights from Pillars of Light: Exploring Muslim Cultures Programme Pillars of Light January - April 2006 June 2006 June - October 2006 August and September 2006 September 2006 November 2006 Convivencia. November 06 – January 07 March - July 2007 April – June 2007 ****************************************************************************************************************************** From the Margins to the Mainstream Pillars of Light is built on a connection between people and a confluence of cultures. It feels right that confluence should end in conference and that Pillars of Light culminates with a meeting of minds. The immediate impact of making connections has been a series of hugely enjoyable cultural events. The exploration of Muslim cultures pursued by Pillars of Light brought together artists from different periods, cultures and countries. Pillars of Light has been animated by the way in which communities of people across Yorkshire have engaged with various riches. Connecting people with this wealth of cultures has provided us with valuable insights into the processes of audience engagement. We hope this will inform future debate within the cultural sectors on areas both challenging and exciting such as diversity, legacy and artistic integrity versus cultural sensitivity. The conference programme includes keynote contributions from three acclaimed speakers - visual artist and academic Professor Salima Hashmi talking about women artists of Pakistan; Iranian born writer Shusha Guppy examining identity and aspiration; and historian and writer Barnaby Rogerson exploring the relevance of Islam to contemporary Britain. Perspectives from audience representatives provide further freshness and immediacy. ****************************************************************************************************************************** Pillars of Light is a vibrant year-long region-wide programme exploring different aspects of Muslim cultures and heritage. Led by Alchemy, a cultural enterprise company, Pillars of Light is also an integral part of Illuminate - the Urbun Cultural Programme being celebrated at the same time. What gives Pillars of Light its distinctiveness is the central theme of cultural confluence - the manner in which Muslim cultures, historical and contemporary, have influenced the artistic practices of other cultures and vice versa. It involves a range of art forms and disciplines from the visual arts to literature, to music and to film. A cluster of events of this superlative quality, focusing on Muslim cultures while also examining their interactions with other cultures is unprecedented in Yorkshire. Aims: To deliver a successful, vibrant, multi-disciplinary event that explores interactions between Muslim cultures with other cultures, within the context of their heritage and contemporary reality and leaves long-term cultural and learning legacies. To deliver arc of light, an intraregional audience engagement programme which has a resonance for different communities of people. To create sophisticated, cross-cultural awareness between communities. A range of partners are coming together in the strategic planning, positioning a programme delivery of Pillars of Light. These include regional agencies such as Yorkshire Culture, Yorkshire Museums, Archives and Libraries Council, Arts Council Yorkshire and Yorkshire Renaissance Museums Hub and key participating organisations such as Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, York Museums Trust, National Centre for Early Music York, York Theatre Royal, the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford Museums, Galleries and Heritage, Bradford Archives and Libraries Services, Leeds Libraries and Temple Newsam, Leeds. Pillars of Light is a crucially important project in the context of the 'alliance of civilisations'. The potential of Pillars of Light to help further intercultural understanding is immense. An imaginative audience engagement programme, arc of light, is being developed in order to transform this potential into an active force. This will exponentially increase its reach and scope and ensure that the outputs of this unique initiative are maximised and a legacy ensured. Pillars of Light inaugural event is Palace and Mosque : Islamic Art from the Middle East which opened at the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield in January 2006. Drawn from the V&A's superb collections and representing 1,200 years of Muslim material culture, Sheffield will be the only European venue to host this exhibition before it returns to the V&A as part of the refurbished Middle Eastern Galleries. Please look under the EVENTS section for a complete listing of all the events taking place in Yorkshire and Humber. **************************************************************************************************************************** Pillars of Light © Joolz Denby The present is always threaded with the gleaming patterns We look and in tumbling visions see what those who And greater still are the palaces built to house these treasures, We know by these tokens, these talismans, that the creators
16 arts projects
11 Yorkshire districts
18 organisations
19 participating groups
55 participating contemporary artists/craftsmen
300,000 audiences estimated to have engaged with Pillars of Light
Treasures from the Middle East
Palace and Mosque: the richness and depth of the Islamic cultures of the historical middle East drawn from the V & A collections, on display at the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield . Pillars of Light invites a group of women from Keighley, in a rare trip outside the town, to see the exhibition. “ I never thought I’d see my religion shown so beautifully”, says one. “Just look at how much we have contributed.”
Poetry
The pre-eminent radical Pakistani poet Kishwar Naheed visits Leeds and Bradford for a ‘big gathering of poets’: a Maha Mushaira. One of the poets joining Naheed is award-winning Joolz Denby, who says: “The worst thing any artist can do is be insular. Poetry is poetry all over the world: you have to be eclectic, you have to be open to the work of other cultures.”
East meets West
A new display of Chinese and Middle Eastern objects at Temple Newsam House, from the 10th century to the present day enthrals audiences. The collection comes alive as different dimensions of cultural exchange are revealed. The curator comments: “here was something we’d been looking at for years, and suddenly, we saw it in a new light”.
Future Heirlooms: Contemporary Craft from
Alchemy works in partnership with Barsana, a Delhi-based NGO dedicated to the continuing vibrancy of centuries-old craft traditions in . Some of the most celebrated craftsmen in the country visit Yorkshire , displaying and selling their work. “This is not craft,” says the Director of Barsana, “this is part of our life.”
Film
Bite the Mango at the National Media Museum
Screens Ovidio Salazar’s exploration of the life of Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, a twelfth-century Iranian scholar and mystic. The film maker’s agenda is to restore the focus on the complexity of Muslim cultures, in his view too often neglected by the media. “I try to make films that reflect this other view – there is a great civilization there.”
Early Music
Prominent British soprano Catherine Bott works with vihuelist and lutanist, David Miller and virtuoso oud player, Abdul Salam Kheir. The touring programme, devised by the National Centre for Early Music,York, highlights the beauty and fragility of cultural interchange in Moorish Spain, where the delicate art of living together had a special name:
Visual Art
Speaking Art at Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Art Gallery showcases Islamic calligraphy, including the work of bright new talent Soraya Syed. Syed recalls her first visit to Bradford , and the enthusiastic response to Islamic calligraphy among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. “Anything beautiful can have a profound impact on anyone, no matter what their background.”
Visual Art
A display of works by the legendary Indian artist MF Husain at Harewood House, offers not only an insight into the vibrancy of the artist’s imagination and his wide-ranging subject matter but also into the richness and depth of the cultural exchange of the 60s and 70s between England and India.
Visual Art
The visit of a six and a half stone, seventeenth century jade terrapin from the British Museum to Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Art Gallery gives us a clue to a revolution in visual art that took place 400 years ago in the Mughal court of Jahangir. Cultural confluence between , and Europe are demonstrated in this naturalistic piece of sculpture.
Pillars of Light: Exploring Muslim Cultures Conference
Thursday 28 June 2007
Yorkshire Museum, York
of the past - to look at beauty given to us by those
who went before unknots the tired heart and brings
peace to minds congested by the frantic puzzle of our
daily lives - it lifts us from the ordinary to grace,
shows us the path to our common humanity and reminds
us of our great human family, unfolding generation
after generation like a slow blooming blood-red rose.
worked so long ago saw - flowers waiting to unfold
from the tangled yarns, patterns like the yearning
throats of orchids submerged in the calligrapher’s inks,
raw stone waiting to give up the sinuous arabesques
sleeping within its living adamant spirit, the ecstatic
intensity of jewels caught in nets of honeyed
fire by the craftsman’s strength and patience.
carved, fretted and laced into minarets garlanded with light
as rich and dreaming as the incense-blue dawn that burns
away in the rising heat of the great sun’s blazing heart,
their mazy interiors threaded by the old, meandering
songs sung so often and so long; they blend into the spicy day
in tones of musk, ambergris, sandalwood and vetiver,
the layered perfumes that live still in folds of ancient silk.
of this glory were men and women like ourselves who
loved and danced, smiled and kissed, knew loss and solitude,
pain, fear and the terrible tender joy of life that flows
on forever, carrying us all with its vast unknowable prophecies
coded in these creations and in the shining eyes of children
who, in their turn, will make beauty and enduring light
for the world, bound in hope and faith, and for pure joy.
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