Episode 68: Wonders of Creation with Dr. Ladan Akbarnia

This episode explores the theme of wonder as it relates to art and science in the Islamic world, as well as the role of museum curator. Dr. Ladan Akbarnia is Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at the San Diego Museum of Art and a Commissioner of Arts and Culture for San Diego County. She conceived and curated the current exhibition Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World. Previously, she served as Curator of Islamic Collections at the British Museum from 2010-2019, Executive Director at the Iran Heritage Foundation in London, and Associate Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Art and Architecture from Harvard University. Our conversation includes an overview of the exhibition, Dr. Akbarnia’s process for curating it, including many collaborations with other institutions and contemporary artists, and her role as curator more broadly. 

For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we encourage you to get out to your local museum (or online collection), and view some art to see what it inspires for your own creative process. 

Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.

If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 48: Can You Learn Creativity? with Creative Director Chris McKenna, Episode 52: Texas Poet Laureate Amanda Johnston, and Episode 56: Asking the Questions with Stereophonic Cast Member Chris Stack.

At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. 

Episode-specific hyperlinks: 

SDMA Wonders of Creation Exhibition Overview

Wonders of Creation Gallery Tour on YouTube 

Dr. Ladan Akbarnia on LinkedIn

Book: Wonders of Creation

Show / permanent hyperlinks: 

The Syncreate Podcast

Syncreate Website

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Syncreate Facebook

Syncreate LinkedIn

Syncreate YouTube

Transcript

Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. We talk with visionaries and changemakers and everyday creatives working in a wide range of fields and mediums, from the arts to science, technology and business.

We aim to illuminate the creative process, from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture and you're not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org.

Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. And specifically, we'll be starting up a monthly coaching group, creativity coaching group in 2025 starting in January. So please join us for that.

I am so delighted today to welcome my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Ladan Akbarnia. She is curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. She's the curator of the current exhibition Wonders of Creation: Art, Science and Innovation in the Islamic World. Before coming to San Diego, she was Curator of Islamic Collections at the British Museum from 2010 to 2019, and she holds a PhD in Islamic Art and Architecture from Harvard University.

She also serves on the San Diego County Arts and Culture Commission. And I'm particularly excited to have Ladan on the show today because we are old and dear friends. We went to college together at Vassar and sang together in an all-women's a capella group, shout out to Measure 4 Measure. So I know we've been talking about having you on the show for quite a while and wanted to kind of focus our conversation on this current exhibition, which I had the pleasure to see in person just the other day at the museum in San Diego, and we took, we did a virtual gallery tour when I was there.

And so we'll be publishing that as well as an adjunct to this podcast episode. So for those who can't see the exhibition in person, you'll be able to get a taste of it that way. So, Ladan, welcome. I'm so happy for you to be here today. 

 Ladan: Thank you so much, Melinda. I've been looking forward to this. I've really, really enjoyed your podcast. And I just love the people that you bring to it and all of the topics that you cover. So I'm really happy to be a part of this. 

Melinda: Thank you so much. Yes. And to see you and spend time together. So, having gotten a chance to view the exhibition, I'll just share maybe a little bit of my impression with listeners.

So this is a special show that you've worked for a number of years to put together. You receive funding from Getty and the National Endowment for the Arts. You've borrowed from collections all over the world. And you've kind of focused the exhibition around a particular medieval text, which, you know, I'll have you describe a little bit, but it's on the wonders of creation.

And so it was kind of a compendium of all the known knowledge of the world during the Islamic period in Persia around 13th century. Right? 

Ladan: Yeah. So it was done, it was actually, I think it was probably written more likely in what's now Iraq. So. But the author lived in Iran.

And his name was Zakariyya Muhammad. Zakariyya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini. And I'm missing a few names in the middle there. He actually came from a family, you can kind of view him as an immigrant to Iran. He came from a long line of Arab immigrants to Iran. And he lived in the city of Qazvin in northwest Iran. 

And during the Mongol conquest of that area, as the Mongols sort of swept across Central Asia, Iran, Central Asia, heading west, he fled the first invasion. And after the second invasion, he actually remained. He was educated and he had become this Islamic professor and judge. And he was patronized under the new, you know, he had a Mongol patron. And that's when he wrote this book, which is in fact a cosmogony or a description of the entire universe. 

Melinda: Yes. So during this kind of tumultuous time in history, this period of Mongol invasions, and one of the things I really love about this exhibition is that you bring in, you know, different copies of the actual text from different periods and different areas of the Islamic world and objects from the time period, but also spanning the centuries in between then and now.

And then, one thing I most appreciate about the exhibition is how you commissioned local California artists with some connection to Islamic heritage to create new works, reflecting upon this text and this era. And these are also incredibly stunning and moving in and of themselves. So I'm curious, kind of what was your inspiration for putting together this exhibition?

Ladan: It's a very good question. About five years ago, when I first came to San Diego from London and I started this job, I was asked to put together an exhibition that looked at the intersection of art, science, and Islam. And this was going to be our pitch, so to speak, to the Getty Foundation for, to participate in their initiative, an initiative that they do every few years that's called PST.

It's now been branded as PST ART. And every few years there's a theme. And from San Diego to Santa Barbara and, you know, the Pacific Ocean to Palm Springs, everyone can pitch projects and get support. So we got two grants, Research and Implementation Grant for this exhibition, which for me was, it was a challenge to think of how I wanted to approach a show on, you know, so-called Islamic art in a city and region that has never had such a show before.

We've had shows in Los Angeles, and, you know, many other cities. But here we hadn't had that. And I just thought it's such a vast topic, breadth and depth of material to cover. It's not covering a century, you know, it's covering from the Islamic period in the seventh century all the way to the present day and from regions, from, you know, Spain and West North Africa all the way to Southeast Asia.

We even have a show, a piece from Japan in the exhibition, certainly from China. And I just thought this text, which doesn't necessarily approach all of, you know, it doesn't apply to all of the material that's represented in the exhibition. It certainly provides a really, I think, clever framework for capturing a number of objects that earn their place in the show, so to speak, by either illustrating a topic covered in it, like some sort of scientific topic covered in it, or because they evoke wonder in some way. 

And I know we'll get to the wonder part in a moment. But the cosmography itself, by its very nature is, it's kind of like a natural history, and almost an encyclopedic natural history. But it differs from that in that it doesn't necessarily have to be all established science. It can be, it can include stories.

There are stories also about fantastical creatures and Qazwini, at that moment in time, brought together all this knowledge that he had as a man in his standing, and then layered onto that stories to make the delivery of the information engaging and entertaining, and included as well excerpts of quotes from the Qur'an, or the Holy Book of Muslims.

Melinda: Yeah, yeah. So wonderful. So, yes. So it was kind of a compendium of knowledge, but also celebrating, you know, God's creation. Right? And all of the manifestations on earth. So that it has both like a scholarly element and a spiritual element to it. Yeah. So, I think that's actually a great bridge to talk about this idea of wonder. So the title of the text is Wonders of Creation. And then what's the second part of it? 

Ladan: So it's, that's coming from the title of the text Qazwini wrote, which was called 'Aja'eb ol-makhluqat wa qara'eb ol-mowjudat which is Arabic for The Wonders of Creation and the Rarities of Existence. There's variations to the title, you know, wonders, they're basically reflecting, you know, the marvels of the universe.

And for Qazwini, everything has wondrous quality. At the very beginning of his text, first he explains why he's writing the text, which is, you know, he's saying, you know, for fear of all the wonders and marvels that he's seen in the universe, he felt he should write them down for fear that they would be lost.

And he wrote this text in two languages during his lifetime, Arabic and Persian. And he, at the very beginning of the text, what's really interesting about it, which was also a window into this exhibition or this idea of an exhibition, is that he appeals to the reader to approach the world with wonder, and defines wonder as that state of, perplexity that arises when we don't understand the cause of something or the impact of something.

And he says, if we contemplate, he asks us to question, to observe, to ask questions, because that's, those are the ways they start that process of digging deeper and understanding, building, increasing our knowledge, which ultimately not only is of value because of the pure joy of learning for the sake of learning itself, but because it actually, in his eyes, you know, coming from an Islamic standpoint, brings us closer to God. 

Melinda: And celebrates all of that. Yeah. And it really, you know, it strikes me that this is a clear connection to creativity and the creative process, which is kind of the focus of the show. Because that element of wonder or of curiosity, of wanting to learn about the world, and this, in creativity studies, we talk about openness to experience, right, is that desire for knowledge, that desire for learning that, you know, just wanting to understand the world around us, so highly connected to creativity.

Ladan: Absolutely, absolutely. And you feel it actually in the way that he's writing. Even I think then there are nuances in each of the languages that bring that out. And I always give people the example of, if you're reading, I think it's in James Joyce's, like the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. There's a chapter on gluttony, and I just remember reading this, and just the way that the words were written were gluttonous, you know, through the alliteration through all that.

And so you feel you're experiencing with, in more than one way, it's not only the topic, the content, but also the delivery. And I think that comes up also in the contemporary works that we can understand perhaps more easily if we don't have a background in this area. But it's this idea that you are open to engaging to and experiencing on every level. Also, you know, using all of your senses. 

Melinda: Yes, absolutely. And I think the, you know, the works in the exhibition really touch on all of those elements, all of the senses. Yeah. And so I'm curious kind of how did you go about selecting the works to be included, including the contemporary commissions? You know, there's of course, like such a vast trove of objects and artworks to choose from, from throughout the Islamic world. So, like, how did you narrow it down or how did you decide?

Ladan: There is such a trove and yet there isn't, because you have to think, well, where will these come from? There's so many elements to implementing an exhibition that actually, people don't necessarily know about. And as a result, you know, people might quickly say, oh, well, there's not enough coming from here or from there.

There's no representation of this area, that area. A lot of times it happens due to what is feasible, you know, and funding is a big part of that. Increasingly, as we, you know, as I hope, you know, we're more aware of our, you know, our environment and what we must do to preserve it, there's, we're going to be probably doing fewer and fewer loan exhibitions just because of the airfare and the footprint that leaves of what, you know, of bringing work.

So I did have, I have two major collections that came from quite far away and, you know, a number of international as well as domestic loans. But mainly, at first I thought we didn't have enough from our own collection, and we ended up using over 30 works, some of them commissioned. So first you want to look at your own collection, see what you can draw out of it.

Then you're trying to tell a story. And so it's a bit a mix of desired, you know, stars that you want to grab and you want to make sure you can get. So you try to secure those first, and then you then have like ones that where you want to fill areas. And I like to design exhibitions or I like to curate, organize them in a way that they're, they can yield and make room so that the structure can actually be reconfigured so that the work, the exhibition could also exist elsewhere, or that it can be a framework for display in a museum in general.

So I started with a number of core works. You know, we want to make sure we have this manuscript because it is representative of that Persian edition that Qazwini wrote, we want to have that particular one because the paintings are just, stunning, you know, or we want to make sure we have some astrolabes that are to be able to tell the story about timekeeping or, have a nice mix of media and not necessarily searching.

The contemporary was not so much searching just to have contemporary. It was specific relationships that those artists had to the topic, whether they were interested in Qazwini and I just happened to be working on Qazwini anyway, and so I heard about that and I reached out, or because they were someone whose work I had already admired, and because they've already demonstrated that curiosity about many of the topics and the texts.

So all of this kept going, kept going, kept going up until within under a year of the show. And one of the big breakthroughs was that about a year, just over a year ago, a year and a half ago, I went to the first Islamic art Biennale in Saudi. And when I was there, I realized there was a collection from Kuwait, the al-Sabah collection that had not, that had a huge number of loans, over it, you know, in for the Biennale.

And I thought, oh, I thought that they, I didn't think that they were lending that number of objects because they had some works on view in Houston. They had their own collection and display in Kuwait. But I thought, you know, maybe I should just reach out. And I had a relationship already with the director. I knew her from years past.

And that brought us, in the end, 60 objects to the show. And so that filled in a lot of works that were, were really crucial of certain important astrolabes and ceramic works, metal works, manuscript pages, but also the other major lender was another good friend, the Islamic Arts Museum in Malaysia.

They had supported the re-installation of the Islamic collections at the British Museum. And the director himself, when he found out that I didn't get another loan from Oxford, he said, I heard about this. I really want to help you put on a beautiful, stunning exhibition. What do you need? And I'm so grateful for that. Which really leads to an ultimately pulling these things together was one about works that fit, reaching out, trying to find them, learning about new ones along the way, working with, you know, really wonderful research assistants who helped me.

One of them did her dissertation on Qazwini, and finally, the impact or the benefits of 25 plus years of cultivating relationships with really wonderful colleagues, and institutions. 

Melinda: Yeah. And that's something that came up when we were talking the other day, you know, in our very first episode of the Syncreate Podcast, we were talking with Michael Osborne, who's also my producer, and he was talking about this idea of social capital.

And that's really about the wealth of relationships that we build. And I think, you know, you in particular are so amazing at cultivating these relationships with people in your field and beyond your field and all across the world, so that when the time comes, you know, that you're putting together an exhibition like people really want to help you and vice versa, right?

You know, we're constantly helping each other. And so that kind of brings me to the question. I'm curious, like how you approach your role as a curator. Like, what does that role mean to you? Because it strikes me that it has a connection to history, culture, education, politics, even activism at times. You know, you're playing a really pivotal role in bringing, you know, this work to the wider world that people may not be so familiar with.

So how do you conceive of that role as curator? 

Ladan: Well, I really appreciate your take on it, your perspective on it. It makes me happy because it's something that I'm trying to do. You know, originally before I, when I was younger, I had no idea this role existed or what it meant. You know, I come as, you know, similarly to you, like, we, I come from a family of people sort of in the science field, in medicine, and I have, a family that has always supported my decisions and the directions that I've taken, which has been incredible.

And there are overlaps there as well. You know, I remember not being able to see, get it, you know, to see certain works in a collection in Istanbul. And in the end, it was through different relationships. And with that, that came through my father, you know, that somebody happened to know somebody happened to know somebody, which just led to the meeting that led to having access to things.

And then, so I think there's a lot to be said for having this attitude in general that there's so much to gain from knowing people that you are sharing information. They are also sharing with you. And it really does come to social capital in that sense. But it's not approached in a way of, expecting that, it's more that, I found when the time came that the natural thing to do would be to reach out to this person or the other.

I also have a really incredibly supportive, small group of friends who are colleagues in the field. We have a chat, you know, that. And I could bounce ideas off of them. I could actually call upon them. And many of them became involved in the project, actually, all of them in some form or another. And I think there's as a curator, what I'm trying to do is, one bring, share information that, you know, comes from my own expertise.

But curators often also have to be, you know, by default, generalists. You know, I certainly am not an expert on every part of this, in every region, every area covered in this exhibition. Certainly, I was not an expert on Qazwini. I've learned a lot in the process. And what I find is that through curating, I'm able to organize history and material culture in a way that can spark curiosity and engage people who don't, who may not know about it. 

But it's just as important for me to give those little nuggets to those who have been studying it, that they'll be excited to see something. So for me, it's not important that everyone gets every layer that I see.

And I constantly learn new things. And I think I try to do some things that maybe, you know, when you mention activism are maybe they're not so direct or obvious, but simply, just even the idea of wanting to use an Islamic text as a framework to present an exhibition, that was really important to me, to go to the culture itself. Even if it's not representative of every culture across the, you know, the span of objects in there.

That was important to me. And it was important to me to have a significant presence from today's Islamic world, or diaspora. So having collections from Kuwait, Malaysia, Egypt, that was really important. And then drawing connections and drawing attention or emphasizing the importance of living traditions. I didn't, I don't want Islamic art or material culture to be just seen as something that's frozen in the past, that it's something dynamic and something exciting. And that is reflective of people from the parts of the world that maybe many look at with fear or skepticism. 

Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. No. And I think that that piece, the commissions and the installations from the contemporary artists in this exhibition are, to me, so exciting and so dynamic and so moving. And they also provide that bridge.

So when you walk into the exhibition, you see a map of the Islamic world and the span of from where all the objects came from. And then you kind of move into the root text and different versions of it, kind of illuminated manuscripts, beautifully decorated with gold. And, you know, you get to see the like, you know, where it all came from.

And then you begin seeing more and more of the objects which span, you know, material culture. You mentioned the astrolabes which were used for keeping, you know, track of time. There's the astrology piece. Right? Where we see an example with, yeah, star map. Exactly. And then, you know, we, we go into, you know, seeing jewelry and ceramics and metalwork and medical objects along with these incredible installations, which I'd love, you know, to highlight a few of those, in particular.

And of course, we'll be providing as an accompaniment to the episode a visual video tour of the exhibition with you kind of talking about the different objects. And so, but, you know, this spanning from the root text all the way to these contemporary installations really gives you a sense of that living culture and the connections between, you know, the sort of more ancient and the more contemporary.

So, you know, we don't have a huge amount of time, but we will be providing the video of the tour so people can learn more. But, you know, are there a few objects that you would particularly like to highlight? 

Ladan: Yeah. I mean, I think you did such a beautiful job of capturing that kind of feel of the exhibition. And I think one, it is very complex. I think, you know, I still am continually grappling with it myself, but as an overview, you know, the structure is organized in the way that you said, you know, it starts with this orientation with the area, the, you know, parts of the world that are represented in the show.

And it starts really with, introducing Qazwini’s text itself, understanding what a cosmography is, when and then after that it takes, it's meant to really take the visitor on a journey through his text, which is structured, hierarchically, from starting with God and the heavens and all, and the inhabitants of the heavens all the way through earth to the most minute creature that you know that exists.

And in the earth’s section on the terrestrial realm, he talks about everything from, in terms of the kingdoms, mineral, plants and animals. And I think the objects as you go through, you know, in the beginning, I think it is really striking to see such a large number of illustrated manuscripts. Unfortunately, we don't have the one manuscript that we connect to Qazwini’s lifetime.

We, because that was a very difficult loan to get. And I didn't even try because I just thought it was more important to make sure I got other ones. So in the first section and introducing the time here, we show, you know, here's an inkwell that he could have used. He would have been aware of it, it might have had loops and that's really to emphasize the nature of the fact that you could travel as a scribe, as an artist, you could do your job as long as you had your basic tools, you know, a box of, you know, of pens.

He wrote his book, he wrote this text in Wasit which was known for its reed industry. So just little things like that are really interesting to know. But then as you go through and you see the cosmography, you realize, wow, this was copied several times. It was translated to other languages and then, you also notice there are a lot of strange creatures, you know, so there's a section at the end of the part on Qazwini that is, you know, includes one of those commissions.

This one mean by Hayv Kahraman, who happened to be really interested in Qazwini’s text, but specifically the parts that describe those creatures, either the hybrid creatures that come up at the very end who aren't necessarily human but might have, you know, the body of a human, but wings or the trunk of an elephant. 

And she sort of takes the perspective of, okay, they're kind of like the freaks or the, the outcasts of society. And she kind of connects that, associates that with the idea of foreignness and immigrant mentality. And it's in this section called, rarities, you know, wonders and rarities and rarities are wonders, but those strange creatures would be considered rarities because they're rarely seen.

Or, you know, we might question their existence today. Dragons might be in that category, but they're all but, and so she takes that and she creates this composite creature. And instead of giving it the title rarities, which in Arabic is a is a noun, she gives it the title Ghuraba which is the plural for, of the same root, but it means foreigner.

And it's almost to me as though she's humanizing it, this portrait. She didn't want it to be male or female, and she layers in these various parts of the text into it, whether they're showing palm trees, which are, what she remembers from her mother's land in Iraq. She's a, you know, Kurdish Iraqi refugee who had to leave her home, you know, without wanting to and eventually she ended up in the U.S, like via Sweden.

She shows palm trees that, you know, a dead palm tree that stands straight, and that they're symbols of her own identity in it, her identity as an immigrant. But then she also creates the surface that she does the work on, which is on this organic flax fibers that she weaves. And in the Persian edition, as Qazwini talks, focuses on these 20 crafts that are specific to humankind.

And that becomes part four of the exhibition. That is just that section. And she also includes those crafts. She also marbles the surface. So alchemy, the transformation of matter, the earth, and then celestial symbols all come together on this really palpable, textured work that we're now so honored to have as part of our permanent collection. And then the other really striking commission that we have is by Ala Ebtekar who's Iranian-American.

I've known him for some years. He, a lot of his work looks at time. He’s very well read on many of the philosophers in the Islamic world, on light, Sufism, the idea of transcendence. And so he created this, you know, wall to - I'm sorry - floor-to-ceiling image of the sun that was taken by the Solar Orbiter in March.

And it's superimposed over 15 copper plates that have been etched with reproduced pages of manuscripts on the topic of light and time from the 12th – sorry - 11th century to the 17th, but reproduced in later manuscripts. 

Melinda: And I have to say, it is absolutely stunning. I mean, I think it's almost like the centerpiece of the exhibition. You encounter it in the middle as you travel through, and it's just it's just glowing and it's huge.

And you see this orb of the sun on the copper, and there's texture within it. And as you get closer, you can see the detail from the different manuscripts. And it just glows and it's so captivating.

Ladan: And it's so evocative, I suppose I could say of just the spirit of the show. I mean especially with my first research assistant who had been focused so much on Qazwini during her dissertation research.

I remember at one point she was, she said, you know, Qazwini would be so proud. And that's exactly what I think every time something comes up or somebody engages. And I think both these artists, actually all of the artists, contemporary artists that I worked with in the show, they're approaching the topic with a question.

I want to understand how this works. I want to know, you know, Ala had to do some work before he got to the point where he could see what would the effect be on copper, because I knew that I wanted more light, works that were not light sensitive. Another thing that audiences don't necessarily know is that we can't show works on paper a lot, because every time those illustrated manuscripts are shown, they fade and they fade and they fade and they will fade until there's nothing left on the page.

A copper plate will, it will change, you know. The color will change, but it will not fade. And I think the fact that they are using science, they're using knowledge and they're using what another friend of mine, Margaret Graves, refers to as the intellect of the hand. They bring all these things together, and they become really the expression of what it is to engage with life through the lens of wonder, as Qazwini would put it. 

Melinda: Yeah. Beautiful. And I mean, there's just so many works in the collection which we could and actually do highlight in the virtual tour. So I definitely refer anyone who's curious to take a look at that. It will be available on the Syncreate website on the episode page. But kind of the last thing that you arrive at in the exhibition is the Mirror Room, which is so wonderful and kind of whimsical and fun. So tell us a little bit about that installation. 

Ladan: So that's the work of Timo Nasseri, who is a German-Iranian artist that's based in Berlin. And I knew about his work already, and I knew him. And, you know, one of the things that was suggested to me when I was first thinking about this exhibition was, oh, you could do an exhibition on geometry, you know, and everyone always thinks, oh, you know, let's do a show on geometry in Islamic art, because it's the kind of theme most people might first recognize.

A lot of people will also not realize that, you know, there is a lot, there are figures that you'll see in Islamic art. And I think, I didn't want to go through a more, I don't know, stereotypical approach of looking at Islamic art. And yet, that is the part of the exhibition, it comes up in the section on the crafts that Qazwini discusses.

And it's so interesting because he doesn't necessarily say, you know, here are the crafts or skills, they’re sometimes not what you expect. Some are, some are the essential ones, like agriculture or medicine healing. But then there are things like, you know, how to use an astrolabe or magic squares. And there’s building, carpentry. And so this comes up in that section, I just call it the built environment.

And it is part of a section that looks at this Islamic, this type of decoration, that architectural decoration that is called muqarnas. And that's really specific to the Islamic world. It's one of the innovations that come along with like luster technology. But it starts with these niches and you can see them in tile form and I think goes back to the 10th, 11th, 10th century and we see it in the show, with mirror work kind of coming into three dimensions.

And so I see that work which is called Florence, Baghdad as the culmination, because even though it's not 3D, because it's just all these mirrors put onto four walls. You become immersed in it and it's really looking at all these theories also on light and geometry. 

There's more to this, and because it was inspired, he was inspired by a text that he'd read by a scholar, a contemporary scholar. But I really feel that in the exhibition, it just brings you to this point where you are appreciating mathematics, you're appreciating the kind of building that resulted from that intelligence, but also because you become immersed and you become part of it.

Melinda: You’re a part of it.

Ladan: Yeah, exactly. Not only do you, but we had a lot of staff who had to come in and participate in putting each one of those mirrored, laser-cut mirrored pieces into that room. And every time I see that, you know, I'm really proud of that because for me, the same way that all these different works relate to each other, so do all the different people who come together to actually implement an exhibition that we don't see, we don't know. You'll hear of the curator who did it or the museum that's doing it, but it doesn't work unless all of these people come together. 

Melinda: It's definitely a team effort. Yeah, and I think that's kind of a beautiful place to conclude because the time has flown by. There's much more to say, of course. So I really encourage people to check out the virtual tour and also want to let people know that the exhibition will run through January 5th in San Diego, so there's still time to check it out if you happen to be in the area.

And then portions of this exhibition will go to the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College starting in February. Correct? 

Ladan: Yes, they will. From February 9th, I believe, through June 1st. And really, I think we have about 224 objects in the show from like 33 or something lenders. About 170, over 170 objects will go to the McMullen.

So quite a significant number. But today, I think I've talked a little bit more about some of the works that won't necessarily go there because they're too big and people can definitely see parts of the show images. But also hearing, we did a symposium and hearing just some of the artists talk about their work is really such a treat to hear from their own perspectives, what they were doing.

Melinda: And is that symposium available? 

Ladan: It will be on through the SDMA website probably more in the new year of 2025. It was recorded, but it needs to be edited. 

Melinda: Okay. Well, I'll, once it's available, I'll add a link for that as well. And so I usually like to end each episode with a Creativity Pro Tip, something that people can kind of take from our conversation and run with. And I think a great one for today, you know, we've been talking about, you know, everything that goes into putting on a show like this and everything that goes into curating this kind of exhibition. 

And so I think the pro tip is to go out and see some art at your local museum, or if you can't get to a museum, a lot of collections are available online and just, you know, soak it in. Yeah. Is there anything you would add to that? 

Ladan: Yeah, I mean, I think that's excellent. And I always tell people too, that, you know the meaning of a work really lies not only in its origins in the maker, and what was maybe on their minds or who they were making it for. But also in the piece itself, how it was made, its materiality, the journey of the object.

Some of these objects in the show, even we’ll reference like the journeys they went through. And, you know, they're not always a great story. And, you know, why are the two front pages of one manuscript here, but then the rest of it is somewhere else. And but also then finally it's somewhere between the maker, the piece itself, and the person who actually beholds it. 

And that's where we come in. And we're part of that layer. And I think it really goes also back to Qazwini and this perception of the universe as inherently interrelated, and that even the word for science in Arabic, eulum, it refers to knowledge, you know, and knowledge encompasses science and art. And if we can look at these and blur those boundaries that we've somehow got to here, we realize that you talk about this actually a lot in just in terms of creativity, that these are related. We all have a right to it, and we all have something to contribute. 

Melinda: Of course, of course. And creativity comes in many forms from many different disciplines from what we, you know, traditionally think of as art to science, medicine, engineering, anything that includes innovation of any kind.

Ladan: And ultimately to look at the way people who are experiencing something for the first time look at things. One of the best examples is a child. Sometimes even like an older person, you know, but if we approach the world with wonder the way children do, we have so much to gain. And if we just pause and reflect and contemplate. A lesson that I still am trying to learn myself, even when I'm doing a whole show on this, and you know that all too well about me. But I'm trying to use that approach myself, but I encourage others to do the same. 

Melinda: Yes. Beautiful. So, if people want to learn more about you, your work, your career, what's the best way for them to find you? 

Ladan: Well, I mean, other than, like, a Google search [Laughter] interesting things. But I can be reached through the San Diego Museum, through their website.

And I recently have opened up an account on Bluesky as well. I haven't been very active with it, but I sort of have left Twitter. So I'm going to try to be more accessible through that as well. 

Melinda: And you're also on LinkedIn, right? 

Ladan: I'm on LinkedIn. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Melinda: Okay. So that could be a good way too.

Ladan: LinkedIn is probably, yeah. Professionally especially that’s the best.

Melinda: Okay. Wonderful. We’ll include links in the show notes and on the website. So Ladan, thank you again so much. This has just been such a treat. And I learned so much from coming to see the exhibition in person and, you know, having you kind of walk us through the galleries. It really has been so wonderful.

Ladan: Thank you. Thanks for what you're doing. Really love all the different people and topics you bring together. So I just really wish you continued success on this. 

Melinda: Thank you so much. 

Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate. We're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.

We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin with Ladan in San Diego. And the podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios here in Austin. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.