Making Meaning: Craft Practices and the Process of Change in Islamic Art

Despite growing attention to the contexts of Islamic art, the intentions of patrons and the reception of artworks have dominated the interpretation of change of the seventh to the early twentieth centuries. This model has underestimated the role of materiality in production networks and individual products. The proposed programme acknowledges that meaning was shaped in decisive ways through the action of external political, economic, and cultural challenges on groups of craftspeople, their knowledge and practices. The guiding hypothesis will be that the choices made through manufacturing processes are crucial to the generation of style (technical and visual) and meaning. By concentrating on the context of making through four thematic case studies, we can address the diversity of media covered under the label of Islamic art and examine meaningfully the connections across craft traditions, craftspeople and materials while re-considering where the art stands between its patrons, makers and consumers.