Maintaining the Sacred, Islamic Art Biennial, Jeddah 2023.
Maintaining the Sacred: on April 15, 2022, in the course of an incursion into the Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem, Israeli forces destroyed 30 colored glass windows (qamariyyas) in the Dome of the Rock and Aqsa Mosque. Each window, of hand-carved plaster with individually inset pieces of glass, takes six months to remake. The technique is a dying craft with a few practitioners in Yemen, one in Cairo, and another in Jerusalem. The reconstruction of the windows is currently blocked by the Israeli authorities, but it would take 15 years to repair all of them. This installation is in honor of the history of craft, the worshippers seeking a connection with the spiritual world despite the fragility of the space, and to the bodies protecting our public space.
Photos by Laurian Ghinitoiu
