Organised by
Iran Heritage Foundation
Date
Thursday 26th May 2016, 6.45pm
Location
Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 7LP
Description
The 15th-century poet, scholar and mystic, Jami, wrote of love in his Haft awrang (Seven thrones), ‘A heart without love is a body without a soul. A soul lives forever because of love.’ In Persianate culture, the theme of love has permeated literature, art and music for thousands of years. This spring, it features in a display at the British Museum’s John Addis Islamic Gallery from 21 May–20 November 2016. This lecture will explore love, courtship and marriage in the Iranian world through selected works from the exhibition, including a small private collection of splendidly illuminated Persian marriage contracts (ghabaleh) alongside drawings, illustrated manuscript pages, and richly embroidered wedding costumes and accessories from the British Museum. Produced in areas once part of or closely related to the Iranian world, such as Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, the works date mainly between the 16th and 20th centuries and situate love and marriage within the histories, narratives and contexts of people from the Middle East and Central Asia.
Biography
Dr Ladan Akbarnia is Curator (Assistant Keeper) for the Islamic collections at the British Museum and a specialist on the art of medieval Iran and Central Asia. Her research projects and interests include cross-cultural transmissions between Iran and the Far East; Persianate drawings; the relationship between oral tradition and visual culture; and contemporary Middle Eastern art. She is currently working on: a major reinstallation of the British Museum’s Islamic collections, which will open in 2018 as the Albukhary Foundation Galleries of the Islamic World, and its accompanying catalogue; a book about Persianate drawings at the British Museum (forthcoming also in 2018); and an exhibition exploring encounters between East and West in collaboration with the Islamic Arts Museum, Malaysia (2019).
Before coming to the British Museum in 2010, she was Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she organised a reinstallation of the Islamic collection and the exhibition Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam with its accompanying catalogue (2009); and the acquisition of the collection’s first works of Middle Eastern contemporary art. Previously, she also served as Executive Director of the Iran Heritage Foundation and as Consulting Curator for the Aga Khan Museum Collection. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Before coming to the British Museum in 2010, she was Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she organised a reinstallation of the Islamic collection and the exhibition Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam with its accompanying catalogue (2009); and the acquisition of the collection’s first works of Middle Eastern contemporary art. Previously, she also served as Executive Director of the Iran Heritage Foundation and as Consulting Curator for the Aga Khan Museum Collection. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University.
