As Kelsey Museum staff and curators continue to make strides on the permanent Crossroads of Culture gallery, we are excited to announce the forthcoming opening of a new exhibition that explores how communities in the Middle East and North Africa lived with, adapted to, and reimagined their environments. Object Spotlight #4—developed by graduate students Heidi Hilliker (MES), Sam Ross and Bailey Franzoi (IPAMAA), and Kara Larson (UMMAA), with support from visiting curator Katherine Burge—will open to the public in mid-June.
Organized into three overlapping themes, “The Inhabited World: Living with Nature” considers how the environment influenced artistic expression, domestic life, and spiritual experience in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds from 400 to 1800 CE. The objects on display demonstrate the wide variety of ways in which people engaged with nature and place: they augmented their environment through their lamps, clothing, and architectural choices; captured their environment by way of motifs on decorative and functional objects; and consumed their environment by drawing food, drink, and materials from the world around them.
“These modes of interaction overlapped and informed one another,” described the curators. “Together, they reveal a deep and enduring relationship between people and the elements that shaped their world.”
The exhibition will be displayed on the second floor of the museum, near the Roman Provinces gallery. As with the Kelsey’s past Object Spotlights, it will also be posted online here.
