About
The following is a list of digital archives and online exhibits of Black Muslim Art. Digital Archives are electornic repositories of historic documents or records while exhibits are often displays of art works or historical materials in galleries, museums or community spaces. Exhibition materials are sometimes taken from archives. Digital archives often incorporate a bit of both-- they can serve as sites for collecting but also showcasing materia. View the exhibits and archival materials below and consider the kinds of language and information they use or omit when describing materials. Use this as a resource for examining and drawing on the ways that artists and archivists label and curate the objects and materials they choose to collect or showcase.
Digital Archives & Collections
- Umi's Archive
curator: Dr. Su'ad Abdul Khabeer
a multipart, multimedia research project that digs deep into the life of one woman, Amina Amatul Haqq (1950-2017), neé Audrey Weeks, to explore the meanings of being Black in the world. Umi’s Archive launched as a “(re)claimed space where we remember and dream” in 2021 with a six-part online exhibition series curated by scholar-artist-activist, Su'ad Abdul Khabeer - After Malcolm Digital Archive: Islam and The Black Freedom StruggleCo-directors: Abbas Barzegar and Dr. Bilal King, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, George Mason Univ.
The archive documents African American Muslim contributions to the struggle for justice in the United States. Much more than Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, this is a story of race, religion, and reconciliation central to American history. Includes oral histories, rare documents, digitized copies of al-islam: The Islamic Movement Journal and more. - Black Muslims, 1963 | Gordon Parks Foundation ArchivesIn the early 1960s, as the civil rights movement accelerated, Life sought to gain access to the increasingly bellicose Black Muslim movement. When several white reporters were rebuffed in their requests for an audience with the group’s leaders, Parks—the only Black member of the magazine staff—was asked to try.
- Muslim Artifacts | NMAAHCOver the past ten years, the Museum has acquired over 1,093 religion objects that are now part of its national collection. Objects associated with Muslims are an integral part of this material culture. Its Center for the Study of African American Religious Life engages in both public programming and collecting. The Museum based its decision to collect Muslim objects on several motivating factors—one, the need to represent the diversity of African American religious beliefs and practices; two, the awareness of a longstanding, influential history of Muslims in the United States; and three, knowledge of the significant role of Muslim communities as part of the development of African American self-help organizations and social reform movements in the early 20th century.
- Arts of the Islamic World | Brooklyn MuseumOur collection of Islamic art includes about two thousand objects that span thirteen centuries and represent a variety of cultures from around the world, from Spain to India and Central Asia to North Africa. Particular strengths of the Islamic collection include medieval ceramics and tilework from Iran (ninth through fifteenth centuries); Ottoman Turkish carpets, textiles, and manuscripts; the arts of Safavid and Qajar Iran, including miniatures, oil painting, calligraphy, ceramics, lacquerwork, carpets, textiles, and costumes (sixteenth through twentieth centuries); and North African and Turkoman textiles, costumes, and jewelry (nineteenth and twentieth centuries).
Online Exhibits of Islamic Art
Preserving the Legacy: Portraits and Stories of Black Muslim LIfe
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Artists: Sapelo Square and Rog and Bee Walker of Paper Monday
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Location: online
- About: Preserving The Legacy: Portraits and Stories Capturing Black Muslim Life is a collaborative project between Sapelo Square and photographers Rog and Bee Walker of Paper Monday. This online exhibition features traditional portraiture and statements from Black Muslims across America, who historically have been at the forefront in championing principles of freedom, justice and equality. Contributions made by Black Muslims[1], who make up one of the largest ethnic groups of Muslims in the country, have made a profound impact on American society while, paradoxically, being among the least visible.
A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Senegal
Artists: learn more about the collective of artists here
Location: Fowler Museum of UCLA
Dates: February 27, 2003 – July 27, 2003
About: This exhibition (originally titled Passport to Paradise) explores the arts and culture of Islamic West Africa through a dynamic and influential religious movement in Senegal known as the Mouride Way, based on the teaching on the Sufi Saint Sheikh Amadu Bamba. A Saint in the City introduces audiences to the striking range of Mouride arts—including glass paintings, signage, calligraphy, and contemporary paintings— and fosters a greater understanding of Islam in African life and the Mouride(Murid) Way is a Senegalese Muslim movement based upon the teachings of Sheikh Amadu Bamba, a saint (wali Allah, "friend of God") who lived from 1853 to 1927. This exhibition was part of a larger traveling exhibit, book publication, digital site and educational programming organized by the Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
View Digital Exhibit here: click through to view the exhibition. click on the artworks of interest to view enlarged versions with captions or descriptions
A Saint in the City by ISBN: 0930741935Publication Date: 2003-06-01A Saint in the Cityexamines the elaborate visual culture of the Mourides, a Senegalese Sufi movement based upon the mystical teachings of Sheikh Amadou Bamba (1953-1927). In the boldly visual city of Dakar, images abound despite the fact that Senegal is largely a Muslim country. Vibrant street murals, calligraphy and calligrams, didactic posters, drawings that protect and heal, advertising images, colourful clothing, Web sites, intricate glass paintings, and innovative architecture all attest to the transformative potency that expressive culture has for Mourides. Allen F. Roberts is professor of world arts and cultures and director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA. Mary Nooter Roberts is deputy director and chief curator of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
In Person Exhibits
Using this Section: While the exhibits listed below are not necessarily physically accessible, the descriptions of the exhibits online may offer some helpful examples of the kinds of language and framing that you can use to describe the art works that you will write labels for in your course assignment.
- Dates: September 2024-January 2025
- Artist: MIPSTERZ
- Location: Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado College
- About: an evolving multidisciplinary exhibition and archive created by MIPSTERZ featuring a variety of work from paintings, photography, illustrations and sculptures to installations, digital media, soundscapes, film, virtual reality, and interactive experiences. ALHAMDU—an exhibition three years in the making at the Fine Arts Center—explores Muslim Futurism, a cultural and artistic approach that learns from Afrofuturism, a movement visualizing alternate and liberating futures of Black bodies.
- Artist: Nsenga Knight
- Location: Queens Museum
- Dates: May 19, 2024 - January 12, 2025 (current)
- About: Close to Home is an installation that honors the domestic space as a custodian of cultural and spiritual traditions by providing support and comfort to forge appreciation for heritage and their continuity. Modeled after Nsenga Knight’s family residences from their past six years living in Cairo, Egypt, the installation’s eclectic atmosphere reflects the historic and cosmopolitan. While furnished in various materials and styles, old and new, this family home is also adorned with artifacts from the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair as well as artworks by Knight, including paintings, prints, videos, and wallpaper. While this is not a digital exhibit that you can view in real time, it is happening now at Queens Museum! Or you can also see Knight's portfolio of work here