Manifesting the Unseen: Southampton 2021

"The West uses the East as an inverted mirror, imagining them to be everything the West is not." Edward Said

Manifesting the Unseen: Southampton 2021 is a first-time collaboration between 'Manifesting The Unseen', an arts and culture project led by and featuring Muslim women and the city of Southampton. Curated by Nazia Mirza and hosted by Solent Showcase Gallery and Southampton City Art Gallery.

The exhibition seeks to remove barriers and reveal hidden truths through creating a discursive space to subvert the 'Orientalist gaze' and experience the unique artistic language of Islamic art and its modern cultural expression. It began as a discussion on the invisibility of marginalised identities in public space and how Islamic art remains a hidden treasure for many in the West.

Installation view at Southampton City Art Gallery, 'Manifesting the Unseen: Southampton 2021'. Photo by Joe Low Photography

In 2018 this collective of established and emerging Muslim women artists first came together for an exhibition in London. They invited the viewer to see the unseen and challenge their perceptions of Islam and Muslim women. The visual artists share an interest in the unifying principles of Islamic art, its origins within the inner realities of divine revelation, and its perfect balance of science, art and spirituality. Their work focuses on the essence of things, seeking not to replicate nature but to convey what it represents, revealing what is unseen until nothing remains hidden.

The artworks aspire to reflect Allah's infinite nature; the creation of the pieces becomes an act of devotion for some and a reflection of faith for others. Viewers are invited to contemplate the idea of oneness and how, from unity, all diversity emerges.

Installation view at Southampton City Art Gallery, 'Manifesting the Unseen: Southampton 2021'. Photo by Joe Low Photography

The exhibition includes a site-specific installation, 'Siraat' by Sara Choudhrey, commissioned for Manifesting the Unseen: Southampton 2021 at Southampton City Art Gallery.

Siraat presents a deconstruction of astrolabes found in museum collections across the globe. There is a particular focus on the structural form and geometry of astrolabes produced by four generations of a family based in the 17th-century Mughal workshops of the walled city of Lahore, Pakistan. This reference becomes a literal and conceptual departure point, relating to the artist's Pakistani heritage and themes of post-colonial transit of objects and persons.

Sara Choudhrey, Siraat, MTU21, Southampton. Photo by Joe Low Photography

The top plate features biomorphic motifs inspired by plant life, entwining like vines to convey the many journeys traversed by beings above and below, on the land, sea and in the skies. Also present is a stereographic projection of the skies above Southampton, returning the visitor to their present space and the immediate, ongoing timeline in which they are situated. A further plate is engraved with snippets in Urdu presenting raw emotions, dark and light humour through the migration stories of the artist's parents.

Finally, there is the mater (Latin for mother, 'Umm' in Arabic). Coupled with its decorative hanging (a throne), it completes the structure as a seat to hold all components together.