An Interview with Dr Ulrike Al-Khamis: Interim Director and CEO, Aga Khan Museum

Orientations How was the Aga Khan Museum founded?

Ulrike Al-Khamis The museum is the realization of the vision of His Highness the Aga Khan, his brother Prince Amyn Aga Khan and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. When the museum was still an idea on paper, more than a decade ago, there was a recognition of a deep need in society for a better understanding of the diversity and contributions of Muslim cultures around the globe and their interconnectedness with the world at large. Art happens to be a powerful medium to tell those kinds of stories and to open people’s minds to traditions, ideas and achievements that might be unfamiliar to them.

This vision is reflected in our mission. Since the museum’s opening in 2014, we have worked consistently to foster a greater appreciation of the contributions that Muslim civilizations have made, and continue to make, to world heritage, as well as the intercultural dialogue and interconnectedness between them and other cultures. In this context, the overarching message of our collection—containing some 1,200 pieces—and of our programmes generally, is the beauty and enrichment that result from the coming together of different cultures and the common humanity we all share across time and space.

O How do the goals and mission of the museum support the mandate of the broader Aga Khan Development Network?

 UAK The Aga Khan Development Network is dedicated to education and social development, with the ultimate aim of building harmonious, pluralistic societies that work and grow together in a spirit of mutual understanding and peaceful co-existence. In this context, what the other agencies are doing through social and economic development initiatives, we in a sense do through arts and culture, using our collection, our exhibitions and our performing arts and education programmes for intercultural dialogue and education. In short, I see our museum as an additional tool for making the world a better place.

Dr Ulrike Al-Khamis

A look inside the Aga Khan Museum’s main gallery, where approximately 200 pieces of the museum’s 1,200-object permanent collection are on display at any given time (Image © Janet Kimber/Aga Khan Museum)

O Could you discuss some significant collaborations with local and international partners?

UAK The museum has a history of collaborating with significant local and international partners, including in recent years the Louvre, the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, the Block Museum of Art in Evanston, Illinois, and the For-Site Foundation in San Francisco. Two of the museum’s most recent and most innovative temporary exhibitions also grew out of relationships with partners both local and international. Just last fall, we opened the ‘Remastered’ exhibition, which is a celebration of the museum’s world-class collection of Iranian, Ottoman, and Mughal manuscript paintings. Thirteen masterpieces were re-interpreted through cutting-edge digital interpretations and interactives developed by the internationally renowned Digital Media Experience Lab at Ryerson University Library in Toronto and accessible to visitors on their smartphones. Our friends at Ryerson also developed 3-D visualizations and digital animations that really allow ‘Remastered’ to stand out as a groundbreaking, future-oriented exhibition.

In terms of truly cutting-edge, international collaborations, we recently partnered with Luciano Benetton’s Fondazione Imago Mundi on the exhibition ‘Don’t Ask Where I’m From’, which premiered in Italy in 2019 and went on display at the museum in early 2020. The idea behind ‘Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From’ was to give young contemporary artists who are immigrants, or who grew up in first- or second-generation immigrant communities, a platform to visualize their experiences of living between two or more cultures. Their creations were not only remarkably diverse and innovative in content and form, but profoundly thought-provoking given the opportunities and challenges that come with their inescapable in-betweenness. Between the fifteen artists who contributed, 24 countries or cultures were represented, and the artistic media they used ranged from painting, textiles, and multimedia to ‘calligraffiti’, French-Tunisian artist eL Seed’s playful amalgam of Arabic calligraphy and Western street art. 

O The Aga Khan Museum’s building is designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki. What are some special features of the design that highlight the collection and facilitate visitor interaction? 

UAK The museum’s architectural design gorgeously complements the collection both aesthetically and conceptionally. In his vision statement for the museum, His Highness the Aga Khan had instructed the architects to base their design on the concept of ‘light’. The result is a spectacular building that allows light to guide visitors’ aesthetic journey as well as their emotional journey throughout. While the museum’s central atrium, with its open, airy design, is flooded with light and creates a sense of constant connection with the outdoors, the soft light in the galleries invites a feeling of calm and contemplation.

The focus on light is also rich in symbolic significance. Across our collection, in manuscripts and in inscriptions on objects, light is used as a metaphor for learning and how the lifelong pursuit of knowledge enriches us personally, spiritually, and collectively. By tying into these themes, the physical environment of the museum’s architecture honours the position of scholarship in Muslim traditions and celebrates the museum as a shining beacon of learning, education, and intercultural understanding.

Serviceberry trees bloom in the spring across from the main, west-facing entrance of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (Image © Janet Kimber/Aga Khan Museum)

O As the first museum in North America dedicated to the arts of Islamic civilizations, how does the Aga Khan Museum engage with the local community?

UAK We engage with our local community in a multitude of ways. Most immediately of course, we present our important and internationally acclaimed collection of breathtakingly beautiful Islamic art to the general public. The collection is our starting point, literally and conceptually, in everything we do, be it through our permanent galleries, our temporary exhibitions, or our public programmes. It is the engine that drives our thinking at all times, particularly as there is a multitude of timelessly relevant stories every artwork is able to tell.

At the same time, we look very carefully at the needs of our audiences, particularly in the area of education. In addressing these needs, we have been able to develop, and continue to develop, impactful educational programme resources for school and university groups, families, and lifelong learners. Most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed us to take this important priority in our work online, with the potential of working with those audiences not only locally but around the globe. 

We are also particularly keen to work with the performing and living arts. We work with globally acclaimed performers, but also pride ourselves in supporting emerging local artists, be they visual artists or practitioners of the living arts. We also work with community arts groups, and curate performances and festivals that connect and bridge cultures and encourage dialogue between diverse communities and traditions.  

O In what ways do the permanent collection and its display reflect the contribution of the Muslim art and culture to world heritage?

UAK On its own, each masterpiece in our collection speaks to the creativity, the ingenuity, and the worldview of the peoples and the societies responsible for its creation. Considered together, these objects reveal conversations across history and cultures and tell us powerful stories about the enduring impact of Muslim art and artists on other traditions.

This phenomenon shines through, for example, in a beautiful astrolabe from 14th century Spain. Inscribed in Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew, this artwork not only combines Muslim, Christian, and Jewish artistic influences, it speaks to shared intellectual cultures and peaceful co-existence as well.

Our holdings also help to illuminate the diverse scientific and intellectual contributions Muslim civilizations have made to world heritage, including two important early volumes of The Canon of Medicine by the 11th century Iranian scientist-philosopher Ibn Sina, known as Avicenna in the West. The Canon of Medicine—with its detailed diagrams and its painstaking summaries of medical philosophies and knowledge assembled from the Greco-Roman, East Asian, and Muslim worlds—was for centuries considered the most influential medical treatise in Europe and was taught in European medical schools well into the 18th century.

Planispheric astrolabe featuring inscriptions in three languages: Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin
Spain, probably Toledo, 14th century
Bronze, engraved and inlaid with silver, 13.5 cm
Aga Khan Museum (AKM611)
(Image © Aga Khan Museum)

O What criteria does the museum consider when making new acquisitions based upon the foundation of objects assembled by the late Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan? 

UAK Criteria for art acquisitions for the Aga Khan Museum have always foregrounded the highest aesthetic and technical quality of an artwork on the one hand, and the potential of this artwork to tell a story of intercultural dialogue on the other. As the museum reinvents itself for the future, our focus in terms of acquisitions continues to keep these principles close to heart, of course.

Meanwhile, we have begun to complement our acquisitions of historical masterpieces with those commissioned from contemporary artists—be they Canadian or international—in dialogue with or inspired by our collection. Rather than look at a potential acquisition as a uniquely ‘art historical’ exercise, we look at how an artwork or art commission might open up larger conversations around intercultural dialogue, give a voice to underrepresented communities and highlight experiences and states of being we all share, irrespective of culture or background.

A good example of such an acquisition is the recently acquired Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE by Ghanaian-Canadian artist Ekow Nimako. In 2019, the museum commissioned Nimako, who works in black LEGO®, to create a series of contemporary sculptures in response to ‘Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time’, a loan exhibition from the Block Museum of Art in Evanston, Illinois, focusing on the pivotal significance of the African continent, and particularly West Africa, in global trade in the centuries before European colonization.

Nimako’s response was magnificently creative. The centrepiece of his ‘Building Black: Civilizations’ series reimagines the capital of the ancient kingdom of Ghana as an Afrofuturistic metropolis constructed of tens of thousands of black LEGO® pieces. It looks nothing like any of the objects we have had in our collection so far, but it shares themes and ideas with many of them. Ultimately, it is the thought-provoking story that really matters to us. In essence, we judge an artefact for its potential for intercultural storytelling as much as its artistic quality or technical sophistication.

Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE, an Afrofuturistic re-imagining of the capital of the medieval kingdom of Ghana, one of the most recent works of contemporary art to join the museum’s permanent collection
By Ekow Nimako (Ghanian-Canadian), 2019
Aga Khan Museum
(Image © Connie Tsang/Aga Khan Museum)

O Why does the museum place such a strong emphasis on showcasing art in all forms?

UAK Showcasing the arts in all their forms, as opposed to just through the objects in our collection, allows us to tell richer, more diverse stories about the contributions of Muslim civilizations and the interconnectedness of peoples and cultures. After all, expressions of culture, identity, and the experience of being human are found across art forms—which of course are in fact all interlinked—be they visual arts, music, dance, poetry, or even cuisine. By highlighting works by diverse artists who operate across a range of artistic media, we can grasp at a fuller understanding of the conversations and connections that exist not just between cultures but between artistic media as well.

O In 2019, the museum became a presenting partner of the Museum With No Frontiers project. How does the Aga Khan Museum envision its future role within its close network of international partners?

UAK It is a question that can be answered today, as before, in terms of both physical and digital partnerships. The Museum With No Frontiers is a unique initiative that has resulted in the largest museum of Islamic art on the web. We are proud to be part of the phenomenal global museum and curatorial community that continues to grow and maintain it.

Meanwhile, the pandemic has allowed us to discover the potential of the digital to a degree we never considered before the crisis. This new realm opens exciting new online possibilities when we think of collaborations with like-minded peers and partner institutions. Our own #MuseumWithoutWalls has started to demonstrate what is possible in that respect, from the thought-provoking series of virtual talks ‘REIMAGINE: Global Conversations’ to immersive online exhibitions and our recently launched podcast, ‘This Being Human’.

Moving forward, our aspiration is definitely to continue exploring and deepening collaborative international projects in the virtual sphere. Meanwhile, we will of course also continue with our important existing partnerships with the Louvre, with the Hermitage, and with the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. As we speak, we are working with them on a number of exhibition ideas and curatorial research projects.  

Fountain
Egypt, Cairo, 16th century and later
Marble and sandstone mosaic, 430 x 430 cm
Aga Khan Museum (AKM960)

(Image © Janet Kimber/Aga Khan Museum)

O How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the museum and its relationships with the community?

UAK Obviously, the crisis has required us to rethink the way we serve our audiences significantly. One overriding need that emerged in 2020 and continues today in the face of continuing lockdown restrictions is to stay connected with our communities virtually. In March 2020, we launched our online #MuseumWithoutWalls, which has reached over five million people in the one year that the crisis has been raging. We continue to work on expanding our online programming and, in particular, offerings that serve the education and lifelong learning sectors. We are just about to launch seven new online school programmes based on the museum’s collection that are designed to support teachers and school curricula across a range of grades. We are also growing our work with teachers and students internationally including in Africa, in countries like Kenya and Mozambique.

Ultimately, the pandemic, despite all its challenges and woes, has sharpened our perspective and our aspirations. In the context of the crisis, we started doing the ‘necessary’ and then moved on to the ‘possible’. Now, after learning so much over the last year and seeing both the global potential and, more significantly, the growing need for our work, we are setting our sights on achieving the ‘impossible’. We are aspiring to drive innovation, new thinking, and new global collaborations through the digital medium. At the same time, we cannot wait to open again, to welcome our audiences back with open arms into our physical museum here in Toronto, at the heart of our community—a unique place of beauty, solace, learning, and human encounters, where everyone may feel they belong. 

Dr Ulrike Al-Khamis is the Aga Khan Museum’s Director and CEO.

This article first featured in our May/ June 2021 print issue. To read more, purchase the full issue here.

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