Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper deals with the question of how “the Islamic” is constituted in and through art practices. It is based on a study of contemporary Muslim artists from Europe and the United States of America. Scholars have observed that an interest in art – both its production and its reception – has recently increased among – mostly young – Muslims. Often the artists themselves describe their own artistic activities and encounters with various art forms and medias as profoundly Islamic experiences. Literature, music, theatre, film, and dance thus become sites where religious meaning is produced. This paper does not regard Islam as a set of beliefs that, as it were, feed into the art work or manifest themselves therein. Coming from a praxeological standpoint, it rather addresses the performance of the Islamic as the primary unit of analysis. Islam or “the Islamic” is thus constituted through these performative acts. In so doing, the paper discards predefined hegemonic notions of Islam – or religion – which reduce it to an idealised set of beliefs and practices. Instead the focus is redirected towards the interrelation of space, materiality, body, and sensation. It is this conceptual framework that allows us to examine how artistic practices and performances create religious meaning and subjectivity.