2025 Program

Saturday, November 8

4 – 5pm:

Exhibition Opening Reception
Yee I-Lann: paths of the wind weave shadows bare bones of a mat
Curated by Chase Westfall

5 – 6:30pm:

Keynote Address
Yee I-Lann, The Surface Remembers: Decolonial Groundwork from the Archipelago
Discussants: Hala Auji and Radha Dalal

Sunday, November 9

8:30am:

Symposium registration, with coffee available

9 – 10am:

Curating from Doha: Islamic Art for Contemporary Asia
Speakers: Shaika Al-Nassr, Mounia Chekhab-Abudaya, and Nicoletta Fazio
Introduced by Fatima Al-Kuwari and Yara Al-Kamali, Art History Majors, VCUarts Qatar
Discussants: Hala Auji and Radha Dalal

10:10am – 1pm:

Panel 1 – Unsettled Pasts, Urban Futures
Introduced by Charlotte Hanson, Art History Graduate Student, VCUarts Richmond
Discussants: Hala Auji and Radha Dalal

Each presentation is 20 minutes. There will be a coffee break during this panel and a one-hour discussion following the break.

History as Reparative Practice
Kishwar Rizvi

The Omani Prayer Hall in Quanzhou: Restoration or Reinvention?
Sylvia Wu

Contested Spaces in Singapore’s MBF Mosques (1977–1995): Rethinking
Islamic Architecture and Aesthetics Through Governance, Identity, and
Heritage
Hadi Osni

Migrant Muslims in a Non-Islamic Society: Identity, Space, and Art in
Korea
Soojeong Yi

1 – 2pm:

 Lunch will be provided

2:10 – 4:45pm:

Panel 2 – Acts of Faith, Sounds of Resilience
Introduced by Hayley Secrist, Art History Graduate Student, VCUarts Richmond
Discussants: Hala Auji and Radha Dalal

Each presentation is 20 minutes. There will be a coffee break during this panel and a one-hour discussion following the break.

Faith and Form: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia
Wulan Dirgantoro

Beyond Formalism: Contemporary Artistic Expressions of Lived Islam in
Patani
Muhammad Arafat

Indigeneity, Allyship, and Art in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts
Melia Belli Bose

Faith, Fury, and Feminism: Voice of Baceprot’s Musical Resistance
Leonie Schmidt

Monday, November 10

8:30am:

Symposium registration with coffee available

9 – 10am:

Karak on the Bisat (كرك على البساط): Symposium keynote speaker Yee
I-Lann with curators Chase Westfall and Meriem Aiouna

10:15 – 1pm:

Panel 3 – Gestures of Memory, Reimagined Terrains.
Introduced by Maryam Salem, Art History Major, VCUarts Qatar
Discussants: Monica Merlin and Michelle Yee

Each presentation is 20 minutes.  There will be a coffee break during this panel and a one-hour discussion following the break.

Rethinking Ecologies in “Of Mountains and Seas,”
John Tain

平行绿洲与多极游牧：新疆现当代艺术生态式样和实践 (Parallel
Oases and Multinodal Nomadism: Ecological Patterns and Practices in
Contemporary Art from Xinjiang)
Zeng Qunkai

Beyond the Hijab: Hair, Memory and Intimacy in Contemporary Art of
Indonesia
Boreth Ly

Faith in the Unknown
Anissa Rahadiningtyas and Syaheedah Iskandar

1 – 2pm:

Lunch will be provided

2:10 – 4:45pm:

Panel 4 – Tracing Presence, Blurring Boundaries
Introduced by Grace Figueroa, Art History Graduate Student, VCUarts Richmond
Discussants: Monica Merlin and Michelle Yee

Each presentation is 20 minutes. There will be a coffee break during this panel
and a one-hour discussion following the break.

Personal Effects
Roberto Jamora

That Which At First Tastes Bitter
Charwei Tsai

I Love You
Arahmaiani

4:45 – 5:45pm:

Closing Remarks, followed by a closing reception