Features

The Wearable Mosque

By: Maryam Eskandari

30 of the most renowned emerging and veterans of the fashion design world where invited to display their work at the London Royal Academy. Amongst the carefully chosen contemporary designers that emphasized their culture were Alexander McQueen, Yoko Ono, Sharid Waked and Hussein Chalayan; along with many other up and coming designers exhibiting their work at the third series of “Aware: Art Fashion Identity.” Amongst the fastest rising designers is Austrian | Bosnian-Muslim artist Azra Aksamija, who’s Nomadic (wearable) Mosque was on display at the museum.

An architectural graduate from Princeton University, trained architectural historian from MIT and now an Assistant Professor at MIT’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Aksamija has been studying various forms of Islamic identities through the western representation. An Islamic art that is so well articulated in Western Europe and the United States, creating a new identity particular amongst the newer generations of Muslims. For over a decade, Aksamija has been exploring the stereotypes of culture and social identities that are produced in the art and architecture particularly in the formation of mosques that are a mere fraction in Islamic architecture.

With the current debates of mosque architecture: the banning of minarets in Europe, and the recent heated debates over the mosque controversies that have been fueling in the United States; Aksamija felt that there should be an exploration of the importance in defining an identity through a symbolic concept and defining a programmatically architectural function through the essential needs and basis of a mosque. Referring back to the Prophet Mohammed’s (PBUH) hadith of the “World is a Mosque” as a design concept, Aksamija started to explore a vast majority of the historical mosques with the clear understanding of the culture and accepting the diverse architectural symbolism; concluding that it is not the architectural icon that allows for a mosque rather embracing the hadith that all the world can be a mosque, depending on how we create that sacred space for the connection to our Divine. Thus, the Nomadic Mosque was developed.  A minimal-volume mosque, that is wearable and is designed based on the individuals’ needs and experiences of the worshipper.

Nevertheless, an architectural icon that is so historically ingrained into today’s debates, the development of the dome and the minaret, the mosque which is a defined architectural free standing structure cannot be transformed into malleable space. The project of the Nomadic wearable mosque is to transfer and secular space into a prayer space. To create wearable architecture that would accommodate the liturgical necessities, as well as creating a space within the human boundary to worship.  The wearable mosque is transformed from a “suit” into a prayer rug and the purse into a headscarf with the handles turning into prayer beads. The “wearable mosque” allows for one to wear their sacred space yet at the same time respecting the religious parameters of prayer; yet still redefining the traditional forms and functions of the mosque into a contemporary context.

Using art as the medium to blur the boundaries of religion and fashion, Aksamija clearly understood that the “wearable mosque” would allow for various interpretations depending on the user and the observer, conveying a malleable boundary within Islam. Aksamija believes that the expression of fashion to extend one’s personality is often a chose that one makes to express their character, their mood, taste or needs, “It is the notion of intentionality behind wearing that makes fashion an extension of one’s personality.”

While fashion allows for expressing one’s character and belonging, it can also communicate one’s difference – be it social, political, cultural, or economic – and difference, as we know, can have an effect on one’s social and spatial exclusion.  Setting the concept of pluralism as the foundation, Aksamija started the project with a series of questions that would later develop into the design concept of the “wearable mosque”:

  • By what creative means might one integrate Muslim immigrants into the discussions over cultural and religious pluralism in Europe and the United States?
  • How may art and design inspire alienated Muslims?
  • In what ways can Muslims themselves contribute to a better cross-cultural understanding in a pro-active way?

 

After the London Royal Academy fashion show, Aksamija is headed to Europe for various exhibitions.

For more information on Azra’s work check out her website: http://www.azraaksamija.net

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