By Megan Clancy, Senior Writer/Editor for Colorado College
The FAC recently welcomed its newest exhibition to campus. ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM is an evolving multidisciplinary exhibition and archive created by MIPSTERZ, a non-traditional arts and culture collective for emerging Muslim, Muslim-adjacent, and allied creatives. The exhibition features a variety of work from paintings, photography, illustrations, and sculptures to installations, digital media, soundscapes, film, virtual reality, and interactive experiences.
ALHAMDU’s presence on campus is an event three years in the making, requiring the efforts of countless people at the FAC, CC, and in the Colorado Springs community. Before coming to the FAC, ALHAMDU was exhibited at places such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Rubenstein Arts Center at Duke University, and Twelve Gates Arts in Philadelphia. It now takes up the entirety of the FAC’s second floor and is the largest temporary exhibition to ever show in the museum.
ALHAMDU demonstrates art’s capacity to help us imagine new possibilities and futures in which all may thrive,” says Michael Christiano, the FAC’s Director of Visual Arts and Museum. “Not only does the exhibition align strongly with our mission at the FAC it offers a platform for broad partnership on campus and in the region. We have been working with a wonderful and interdisciplinary group of faculty who have championed this project from the beginning and are using it as an essential site of learning. Likewise, we are collaborating with local artists, creatives, and others to develop programming and other forms of engagement.”
The ALHAMDU exhibition is a mix of history and folklore with contemporary stories. Many, both in and outside the Muslim community, think of Islam as having a “golden age,” idealizing the work of the past and not acknowledging the culture and creativity of the present. This exhibition pushes back against that notion. Each piece in the exhibition touches on at least one of five themes: community, identity, resistance, liberation, and imagination.
“We’re disrupting the space that we’re in and being unapologetically us,” says Shimul Chowdhury, artist and member of MIPSTERZ. “Through this act of being here, we’re actively working towards this future of coming together.”
At the center of the exhibition is the award-winning film “ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM”, projected on one of the museum’s walls. The film was created in a mini-Muslim Futurism utopia itself, with the over 100 people involved in its creation showing the diversity within the Muslim population. “This is our reality,” says Yusuf Siddiquee, musician, artist, and member of MIPSTERZ. “Our cultural influences. The things we consume and the things we value. It’s our history.”
With every new location the exhibition shows in, MIPSTERZ puts out a call to local artists for contributions. In response to the call for art in Colorado Springs, Felicia Kelly and Lupita Carrasco submitted works on behalf of several artists residing in Gaza, Palestine in lieu of their own work. Since the October 2023 siege and ongoing destruction in Gaza, Kelly and Carrasco have been maintaining contact with and advocating for these artists by raising funds to support their search for refuge while also sharing their stories with audiences locally in Colorado Springs and online. The works of Fatma Al Jabari, Yahia Barzaq, Nagham Sammeer, Walaa Ahmed, and Yousef Hassan were curated and submitted by Kelly and Carrasco and subsequently accepted for inclusion by the MIPSTERZ team as part of the exhibition. Each work uniquely reflects on the present moment as a commentary on how futuring as a practice can be understood in relationship to present suffering and the hope and need for eventual flourishing.
“This submission shows the human side of this conversation we’ve been having for a year now,” says Chowdhury.
The opening event on September 13 featured a panel led by Christiano and featured Abbas Rattani (academic, entertainer, and founder of MIPSTERZ), Serena Rasoul (Palestinian academic and creative consultant), Chowdhury, and Siddiquee.
“Muslim Futurism is partially made up, partially created in real time, and always evolving,” says Rattani. He hopes the world the artists have envisioned can help visitors to the exhibition see that “my humanity is inextricably linked to your humanity.”
The panel discussed the exhibition within the context of it being an archive for future generations. “Archiving is a way of looking at the past to build a collective future forward,” says Rasoul. “This challenges the systems that uphold the traditional, academic archive.”
“All of our presents add up to a future,” says Siddiquee. “We are pushing against what an archive can be and what it can look like.”
The exhibition has already connected with students on campus and will continue to be a space for classes to engage with. Professors Tomi-Ann Roberts and Gail Murphy-Geiss, along with their students, have been doing research with Rattani, Chowdhury, and Siddiquee.
“In 2022, when we had the virtual Muslim Futurism Conference [at CC], we were able to show some great attitude change – enhanced collective self-esteem and reduced internalized oppression among Muslim attendees, and decreased outgroup bias and improved Allophilia for Islam among non-Muslims,” says Roberts. “Now we’d like to continue this work with visitors to the MIPSTERZ exhibit at the FAC. This is important for future funding purposes for MIPSTERZ – to be able to show the impact that arts engagement and aesthetic emotions can have on hearts and minds.”
Roberts, Murphy-Geiss, and their students created a study that involves a pre-survey, small group visits to the exhibition, and then a post-survey upon exiting the FAC, allowing visitors to provide their reactions to the exhibition and contribute to the conversations that MIPSTERZ will pursue in coming exhibitions.
“The Fine Arts Center’s exhibition program explores the multi-faceted and diasporic art of the Americas and we intend for that program to be as diverse, complex, and intriguing as the Americas themselves are,” says Christiano. “To honor that intent, we are committed to presenting work by artists who have historically been marginalized from museum spaces and whose creative voices are essential in shaping an understanding of the world around us. ALHAMDU presents a vast range of creative expression from artists who identify as Muslim, or more broadly as BIPOC creators, and allies who hail from across the globe as well as those who come from right here in Colorado Springs.”
In summation, no collection of words can do this exhibition justice. You just have to experience it for yourself. ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM will be on view at the FAC until January 11, 2025. The museum will also host The Spotlight Series on October 25 and December 13. These events will be multi-sensory, multidisciplinary performance art showcases produced by MIPSTERZ and are best described as a live performance variety show, where TED-style talks are interspersed with musical and theatrical performances.
Support for ALHAMDU | MUSLIM FUTURISM is provided by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Building Bridges Program. The mission of the Building Bridges Program is to support national efforts, working with U.S. Muslims, to increase mutual understanding and well-being among diverse populations for the benefit of building stronger, inclusive communities. Support for the exhibition at the FAC is provided by the Catharine and Bart Holaday Endowment for Interactive Art.