PHILADELPHIA (Philadelphia Inquirer) -- The mashrabiya is essentially an ornate window shade, a staple of Islamic architecture since the Middle Ages. As a ventilation screen between one’s home and the outside world, it controls light and curbs noise, allowing one to see out without the neighbors seeing in. In hot and dry places, the mashrabiya cools incoming air, an ancient take on air conditioning.
Museum for Art in Wood was first known as the Wood Turning Center, founded by twin brothers Albert and Alan LeCoff in 1986, and then as the Center for Art in Wood starting in 2011. “The Mashrabiya Project,” currently on view, is the first show under the new name and expanded mission.
“The Mashrabiya Project” on display at Old City’s Museum for Art in Wood, features six artists who transform a traditional piece of architecture into social and political statements. All the artists are women with roots in the Muslim world, from the Middle East to North Africa.
Old City’s Museum for Art in Wood was first known as the Wood Turning Center, founded by twin brothers Albert and Alan LeCoff in 1986, and then as the Center for Art in Wood starting in 2011. “The Mashrabiya Project,” is the first show under the new name and expanded mission.
Aesthetically, the mashrabiya dazzles: crisscrossed layers, interwoven lines, interlocking shapes. The patterns and designs come from both nature and sacred Islamic geometry. Math has always been prized and promoted in Islamic culture, used to solve both practical and religious problems.
“The mashrabiya is a contextual and historical object, but it is also new — so you have this throughline between ancient and contemporary,” said curator Jennifer-Navva Milliken, also the museum’s director. “It tells the story of the continuity of craft.”
This show’s artists probe the metaphorical richness of the mashrabiya, looking at how it protects and divides, provides and deprives, welcomes and expels. By nature, it’s a two-sided barrier fraught with duality. The works call attention to the role of barriers,
(Continued on Page 7)