Saturday, 18 January 2014

New SSN for Islamic Art and Material Culture needs your participation

Funerary tile, from the tombstone of a barber from a graveyard in Tehran.
Featured on our Pots! page - to view details 
click Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

The newly-established Subject Specialist Network (SSN) for Islamic Art and Material Culture invites you to participate in the Islamic Mapping Project.

This important and wide-ranging survey aims to gather, for the first time, comprehensive data on the contents and locations of public collections of Islamic art and material culture in the UK and Ireland, however large or small. The survey has a very broad focus which encompasses all ceramics and pottery historically produced anywhere in Islamic lands, and contemporary studio ceramics made by Muslims or inspired by Islamic design.

Through this survey we also hope to identify the types of support that may be needed among all collections, but especially those with limited resources, staff, or specialist curatorship. This will help the SSN identify areas of need, allowing us to develop targeted workshops and seminars which will support museum professionals working with collections that include Islamic art and material culture.

Results of the survey will be published on the SSN’s new website (to be launched in 2014), where a dedicated series of pages will present the information gathered about collections around the country.

So, if assessing your institution's collection of Islamic art and material culture has long been on the 'To Do' list, now is the moment to engage with the community of Islamic art specialists nationwide by completing this questionnaire. 

To find out more and to participate in this unique effort to map all public Islamic collections in the UK, please email islamicmappingproject@gmail.com to be sent a unique link to the survey questionnaire. Support with filling in the questionnaire and assistance with identifying any Islamic material in the collections you work with is readily available by contacting the same address.