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Discover Islamic Art in the
Mediterranean
Virtual Exhibitions and book launch
Simultaneous inauguration ceremonies for 18 Virtual
Exhibitions, together with the launch of the illustrated
book Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean, are
taking place in 14 EU and Mediterranean countries on 18
and 19 April.
These temporary exhibitions are part of Discover Islamic
Art, a three-year, €3 million project, funded under the
European Commission’s Euromed Heritage III regional
programme and implemented by Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF)
which makes use of the virtual environment to present
artefacts, monuments and archaeological sites together
when, in reality, they exist in different museums and
disparate places.
This temporary thematic exhibition – the first of its
kind – invites online visitors to Discover Islamic Art
in the Mediterranean, starting from the Umayyad Caliphs
(661 AD) to the end of the Ottoman Empire (1922), and to
find out about the contribution of Islamic culture and
civilisation to the European identity.
The exhibition and book will be launched together at
press conferences in the 14 partner countries. Egypt,
Germany, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Palestinian
Territories, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey
will all hold press conferences on 18 April, while in
Algeria and Sweden these will take place on 19 April. In
most countries, the inauguration ceremony will be held
on 19 April. In the UK, the presentation of the Virtual
Exhibition and the book will take place on 9 May at the
Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London to coincide with
the closing ceremony of the Discover Islamic Art
project.
Fourteen countries from around the Mediterranean and the
European Union have collaborated on the virtual museum.
Together, they present a representative selection of
Islamic objects, monuments and historical sites from
Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, the
Palestinian Authority, Syria, Turkey, Portugal, Spain
and Italy, as well as Islamic collections from museums
in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These
artefacts, monuments and sites cover the various Islamic
dynasties and cultures of the Mediterranean region
spanning 1,280 years, from 634 AD when the Muslim Arab
armies first entered the Levant, to the fall of the
Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century.
The participating museums are the National Museum of
Antiquities and Islamic Arts (Algiers), the Islamic Art
Museum (Cairo), the Museum of Islamic Art at the
Pergamon Museum, and the State Museums (Berlin), the
National Museum of Oriental Art “G. Tucci” (Rome), the
Archaeological Museum (Amman), the National
Archaeological Museum (Rabat), the Islamic Museum and
al-Aqsa Library, al-Haram al-Sharif (Jerusalem), the
Archaeological Area and Museum (Mertola), the National
Archaeological Museum (Madrid), the Museum for
Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Stockholm),
the National Museum (Damascus), the Museum of Islamic
Art (Raqqada, Kairouan), the Museum of Turkish and
Islamic Arts (Istanbul), the British Museum (London),
Glasgow Museums (Glasgow), the National Museums Scotland
(Edinburgh) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London).
Exhibition catalogues will be made available in eight
languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Italian,
Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish). The Museum’s
Permanent Collection and Database include at present 850
artefacts from 42 museums and 385 monuments and sites
from 11 countries related to Islamic Art in the
Mediterranean.
The great Islamic Dynasties of the Mediterranean are the
protagonists of the book Discover Islamic Art in the
Mediterranean, together with their fascinating artistic
and cultural legacy. The book is a collaborative work,
written by 39 scholars, museum curators and experts in
cultural heritage for all those who share the idea that
there is not only one history, but that at least as many
histories as peoples exist. The idea behind the book is
to contribute to a historically more accurate and thus
more authentic understanding of Islam by offering
different perspectives of interpreting history, art and
culture.
Discover Islamic Art is a Euromed Heritage project.
Since 1998, Euromed Heritage has committed a total of
€57 million to fund partnerships between leading
European and southern Mediterranean conservation experts
and heritage institutions. Euromed Heritage I
(1998-2004) embraced 21 projects that highlighted and
preserved the Mediterranean’s physical and intangible
heritage. Euromed Heritage II (2002-2005) embraced 11
projects in the field of cultural heritage. Pursuing the
same aims as Euromed Heritage II, four more projects
started in 2004. Discover Islamic Art is one of these
Euromed Heritage III (2004-2007) projects.
To access the virtual museum, go to
www.discoverislamicart.org
For more on Euromed Heritage, visit
www.euromedheritage.net
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