Friends’ Lecture, Book-Signing & Reception: Wonders of Creation
Friday, November 1, 2024
6 PM Lecture (ticketed event) | 7-8:30 PM Private Reception
Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World invites viewers to explore the cosmos through the lens of a 13th century Islamic text. Experience a guided journey from the heavens to the earth, from the skies to the seas, through the intersections of art and science, and marvel at the expanse of the universe. Join us for an insightful conversation exploring Islamic visual culture and its relevance today, especially as seen through the inspiration of this topic on contemporary art.
Featured Speakers:
Dr. Ladan Akbarnia, Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at The San Diego Museum of Art
Ala Ebtekar, artist and creator of artwork commissioned for the exhibition, A Thousand Years of Light (2024)
Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World is on view at SDMA through January 5, 2025.
Learn more and reserve your seat here.
Ala Ebtekar: Thirty-Six Views of the Moon
Drink wine and look at the moon and think of all
the civilizations the moon has seen passing by…
— Omar Khayyam, 11th-century mathematician and poet
Artwork by Ala Ebtekar
Texts by Alexander Nemerov, Kim Beil, and Ladan Akbarnia
Hardcover
10.2 x 14 inches
131 pages / 48 images
Thirty-Six Views of the Moon is a meditative collection of nighttime exposures. Ebtekar uses book pages from texts referencing the moon and night sky spanning the last ten centuries, leaving the sheets outside in the moonlight from dusk until dawn. The artist works with a photographic glass plate negative of the moon from the Lick Observatory archives in Northern California, treating each book page with Potassium ferricyanide and Ammonium ferric citrate (cyanotype) to make the surface of the page light-sensitive. Then, Ebtekar exposes the pages overnight in the UV-light emitted by the moon. The work takes its cue from Omar Khayyam’s poem, eventually producing a vignette of windows to the moon, inviting us to shift the direction of our gaze. This project challenges viewers to imagine the moon looking at us, seeing ourselves as the objects of the moon’s billion-year gaze.
Learn more and order your copy here.