Sharjah Museum Of Islamic Civilization Collaborates On Ground-breaking International Muslim Women’s Art Exhibition On The Worldwide Web

’Muslim Women’s Art and Voices’ project to carry Muslim women’s voices across the globe

Last week, the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization hosted the first International Partner Summit of the 2013 ‘Muslim Women’s Art and Voices’ web exhibition. Held from the 8th to the 10th of October, the summit marked the official launch of this groundbreaking online art project, which will feature art works, poetry, creative writing, and new media created by Muslim women from four countries around the world.

Speaking about the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization’s involvement in this landmark project, Manal Ataya, Director General of the Sharjah Museums Department (SMD) said:” Muslim women, whether they live here in the Emirates or in one of the many diverse societies around the world, are indispensable pillars of their societies, as wives and mothers, but also very much as creative, productive and influential professionals, thinkers, activists and art practitioners. And yet, in a global context, their multi-facetted roles and contributions often go unnoticed or have been subject to popular misrepresentation and stereotyping.

The web-based ‘Muslim Women’s Art and Voices’ art project is an exciting, innovative forum which enables young, creative Muslim women locally and around the world to highlight and celebrate the way they see themselves in this world through the medium of art and creative writing. It provides a platform for intercultural dialogue through artistic expression and aims to project a glimpse of the diverse and dynamic realities that Muslim women are helping to create, sustain, move within and shape through their efforts and contributions.’

Ataya went on to add: ‘It is befitting that Sharjah should participate in such a project for the Emirate well known for its dedicated, internationally acknowledged role and continued efforts with regard to the celebration, preservation and development of Islamic and Arabic culture. With Sharjah being designated as the capital of Islamic culture for 2014, we are extremely pleased to be taking part in this innovative and timely project, which will undoubtedly have a considerable impact with regard to encouraging global intercultural discourse, exchange and understanding.

During the summit the delegation from the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization, represented by SMD Director General Manal Ataya, SMD Head of Executive Affairs Aisha Deemas and Dr Ulrike al Khamis, Strategic Advisor for Middle Eastern and Islamic Art Projects, received delegates from the International Museum of Women in San Francisco, the Ayala Museum in Manila, Philippines, and the Women’s Museum in Arhus, Denmark, to discuss the scope of the project as well as to familiarise themselves with the diverse realities of Muslim women within their respective communities. The key message of the summit was to emphasise that Muslim women are of central importance to their communities and society at large, irrespective of the format that those communities might take, whether they exist within a majority Muslim environment, as established naturalized immigrants or even as stateless refugees. In order to highlight and celebrate their contributions this pioneering art-based web project has been created as a platform to make these women’s artistic voices heard on such relevant and diverse issues as change, identity and self-representation, popular misconceptions about Muslim women and media stereotyping.

The aim of the online multimedia exhibition is to shed light on the experiences of emerging and established Muslim women artists and art practitioners in order to inspire change, shift negative perceptions, and advance a more insightful awareness of the diversity of Muslim women’s lives. In addition to creating individual and collaborative artworks, creative Muslim women between the ages of eighteen and forty, who live locally, in the four partner countries or indeed around the globe, are now being called upon to use the project platform to engage in global conversation about the most critical issues affecting a new generation of Muslim women – such as women’s human rights, choice of personal appearance, media representation and misrepresentation, and self-perception in relation to Islam and the larger Muslim community.

Applications are open to Muslim women between the ages of 18 and 40 and the women selected to participate in the exhibition will have a unique opportunity to collaborate with other Muslim women artists and leaders both in their own communities and internationally via the worldwide web. They will contribute as co-curators of the global exhibition as well as creating original art or creative writing pieces for the project themselves. The application deadline for women wishing to take part in this innovative project is 25 October 2012 and the application form can be found on the Sharjah Museums website at www.sharjahmuseums.ae and the International Museum of Women’s website at http://imow.org/exhibitions/Call_For_Submissions.

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