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A MUSEUM THAT IS ALSO ABOUT ART

THE MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART (MIA) CUTS AN AUSTERE YET ABSOLUTELY AESTHETIC SILHOUETTE ON THE DOHA SKYLINE. THE I. M. PEI MASTERPIECE EVOKES AWE, BRINGING WITH IT A SENSE OF REMOTENESS TO THE BUILDING, SO MUCH SO THAT THE ARTEFACTS WITHIN ARE REGARDED IN THE SAME LIGHT, IF NOT WITH ADDED REVERENCE.
BY SINDHU NAIR

ne person who is constantly reminded of this is Aisha Al Khater, the zealous Director of MIA who is forever thinking of innovative ways to make the museum even more accessible to everyone. Nobody sees the art in the Museum of Islamic Art; they focus on the Islamic part and assume that it is a museum about the religion. We are sometimes referred to as the Museum of Islam. We are a museum about the religion but not only about it, she says. Her passion for her work is evident when she recounts her most memorable moment at MIA. When you have been working in the space with only the staff around you, and then after the inauguration, to see lot of people walking in, the excitement of schoolchildren when they see the place and the exhibits.It is a bitter-sweet experience, she says. The grief of losing the sanctity of the space spiced with the joy of sharing this wonder with the world. It is almost like losing your baby. But then I always remember the joy reected on the childrens faces when they visit MIA. Al Khater has been working in the museum since 2007, long before the building was inaugurated, and was made Director in April 2011. Shadowing two great scholars of Islamic art, the two earlier directors of the museum, Dr Oliver Watson and Dr Sabiha Al Khemir, during their work of cataloging and curating at MIA was a great learning

experience for Al Khater. She is currently studying for a masters degree but that in no way slackens her work at the museum. She is busy with the rebranding of MIA, and she and her team have taken major strides in dening who we (MIA) are, nding our way and having a long-term vision for MIA. Earlier, it was about the opening of the museum, extravagant events and magnificent objects. Now it is about reaching out to the community and sharing the knowledge, she says. Al Khater is distinct about her priorities and clear about the direction to be trodden, My focus in the next ve years is more on the region and locally. We want to build the trust of the people here. We want to share the knowledge of our experts, make the most of our expertise, she says. MIA has gained international prominence, too, Al Khater reminds us. We are constantly bombarded with requests for loans from our permanent collection from major museums around the world. For a museum that is barely ve years old that is indeed an achievement to be proud about, and Al Khater feels that this shows the commitment of the staff in building on the presence of the museum. We want to reach out to the community virtually too. Information on the whole collection will be available online, and that will be a whole resource of information, she says. MIA has seen consistent growth over the past ve years, with 2013 being

MIA gets a colourful new logo

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culture > listening post

We are bringing MIA spaces to life with events and expanding the exhibition experience to include workshops for kids and adults, lectures and behind the scenes tours"
AISHA AL KHATER Director Museum of Islamic Art

particularly monumental. The museum welcomed its one millionth visitor in February 2013, a new record for exhibition attendance, and attained a social media following that not only rivals international counterparts, but surpasses them. A vibrant branding The past two years have been wonderful for both MIA and Al Khater with the number of visitors growing steadily. But the job doesnt end there. It is work in continuity. Over the past ve years MIA has grown exponentially, she says, and now, with the new branding, a fresh whiff of vitality is being injected. We are bringing MIA spaces to life with events and expanding the exhibition experience to include workshops for kids and adults, lectures and behind-the-scenes tours, she says. Though we had a branding in terms of logo, what we did not have was a strong understanding of the vision. How we communicated to the public, in terms of who we are and what we should be doing, was not very clear. We were asked to do a lot of things we were not supposed to do, that didnt really t into our scope of work, which was ne at the time since we were the only museum with a professional exhibition space. We had to agree to some exhibits that did not t our prole, like the 16th-century Dutch
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Exhibition, etc, she says. This is what Al Khater wanted to set right, to have a logo and branding that reects the direction and ambitions of MIA, to say this is what we are, what we can deliver and also what we cant. Another misconception that the earlier branding evoked was that we were about Islam. Which we are partly but we were also about the art of that era. In this new logo Art or Fen (in Arabic) is much more prominent, she says. MIAs new brand expresses itself with a dynamic approach centred on the six pens of traditional Arabic calligraphy, a lively colour palette that reects the diversity of Islamic civilisations past and present, and cubic shapes to represent Islamic architectural traditions and the museum building itself. But will this new branding move the revered MIA away from its traditional role? Will this evoke dissent in the Qatari community who have always opposed the museum culture? Al Khater agrees that the museum culture is new to the region. The museum culture is something we borrowed from the West. The MIA represents an era from 7th to 20th century from Spain to China. In this era, exhibits were in mosques, madrasas, palaces, temples and in elite peoples houses. There was no concept of an exhibit place for the public, says Al Khater.

Which is why she believes in the notion that a museum is more of an educational institution. A belief that holds true for the MIA, with almost half of its space dedicated to education. And this is the reason why Al Khater wants to make the museum more than a space to keep valuable historical monuments but an educational tool that is accessible to all. We arent just a museum; we are a centre of knowledge and inspiration, a place for local community and an icon of the diversity and depth of our culture. It is for this that Al Khater is putting a lot of her time into a programme or guide for different segments of society to access and interpret the collections, to make the MIA experience more detailed to remain with you for a long duration. This programme will be delivered in two years time, says Al Khater. Who visits MIA While MIA doesnt keep a record of the demographic segmentation of visitors, Al Khater says that there has been a high percentage of South Asian, Bahraini and Saudi visitors. Visitors come directly from airports and through travel agencies and we have a high percentage of VIP visitors. Any high prole dignitary will surely come to visit the MIA, she says adding, We will need to get the demographics of visitors not for anything but to nd out which communities we are missing and nd ways to entice them to our museum. She is not so much focused on the number of people coming to MIA as on the intrinsic value that each person takes away from their museum visit. Al Khater also notices that the Qatari visitors seem to have increased which might imply a changing mindset towards museum culture too. Teaching the Teachers MIA is handling the educational programmes quite intelligently by equipping teachers with the tools to pass on their knowledge to the students. We also want to bring back the art of calligraphy. For this too we try to educate the teachers on the process. Making the teacher condent to pass on what they learn to the students, she says. MIA is also working with universities, especially UCL and QU on research. We had much bigger student participation, visits from schools increased this year, which is very encouraging.

Under the skies The MIA Park has become a place where people of all cultures congregate and enjoy the beauty of the Doha Corniche, in the shadows of MIA. The plan for MIA park was already in the Museum master plan according to Al Khater. And having a park close to the museum is not new to museums worldwide. We can now entice people who do not come to museums as such. We try and do events that connect the MIA exhibitions with the park activities. Like how we had a kite-ying event that connected with the Ferozkoh: Tradition and Continuity in Afghan Art exhibition, as it was a tradition followed by the Afghans, she says. From Park Bazars to free concert by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra in the museum atrium, to Jazz in the Park where MIA partnered with Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha for a series of free world-class jazz concerts, activities within MIA park have done what many institutions dream of, bringing communities together. The year to come The MIA will bring interesting new exhibitions in 2014. Starting with an exhibition on chess, the format of the new exhibitions will include more educational programmes to make the exhibit more interesting. Al Khater has an idealistic dream for MIA and what it can achieve. She imagines the recreation of her favourite period in Islamic history, the Islamic Golden Age, the Abbasid period beginning in the mid-8th century CE, an era when the Arab world became an intellectual centre for science, philosophy, medicine and education; an era when the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge, where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the worlds knowledge into Arabic. During this period the Arab world was a collection of cultures which put together, synthesised and signicantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Byzantine and Phoenician civilisations. A place where people come back, to congregate, discuss, give us feedback about what they saw at the exhibitions, communicate, and tell us what they would like from us... These are her dreams for MIA. And given her passion, it might all be a reality.

MIA YEARLY FIGURES 2012-2013

OVER

CHILDREN AND ADULTS HAVE PARTICIPATED IN MIA ACTIVITIES. OVER

4600

VISITORS TAKEN ON GUIDED TOURS OF THE MIA GALLERIES AND SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS. OVER

12,000 4,900 14,500

VISITORS TO THE LIBRARY. OVER

SCHOOL CHILDREN VISITED MIA GALLERIES AND EDUCATION CENTRE.

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