ALHAMDU
(short for al-hamdu li-llāh الحمد لله)
is an experiential arts project created by MIPSTERZ that explores Muslim Futurism—a cultural and artistic aesthetic that builds on Afrofuturist works to reimagine an American Muslim future free from the confines of the majority culture.*
*e.g. anti-black racism, orientalism, homo-trans-xeno-Islamo-phobias, sexism, settler colonialism, and white supremacy-nativism
The project will take shape as an immersive art installation, public programming, and academic study. ALHAMDU visually and interactively envisions a future where Third Culture is the dominant wave, where Muslims exist loudly alongside each other in their found-families. This is a surreal, multi-chromatic journey. This is a bright America that exists tomorrow, shared today.
ALHAMDU is a re-imagining of the American Muslim identity in a way that that engages with intersectionality through what “Muslim Futurism” means, draws from, and works toward. As we see it, Muslim Futurism builds upon the foundational legacies of Black resistance and liberation movements quintessential to Afrofuturism. We have selected 5 core themes that reflect the legacies and intersections that have come to influence and define American culture and history.
Imagination
Identity
Community
Resistance
Liberation
advisors
Zaheer Ali
Oral Historian & Public Scholar (MA, MPhil)Columbia University’s Malcolm X Project and Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011)
CNN’s Witnessed: The Assassination of Malcolm X (2015)
Brooklyn Historical Society's "Muslims in Brooklyn" (2017-2019)
Netflix’s "Who Killed Malcolm X?" (2020)
Aisha Shillingford
Activist & Educator (MSW, MBA)Artistic Director, Intelligent Mischief
Credits: Wakanda Dream Lab, Racial & Economic Justice at the New Economy Coalition, Social Transformation Project, Innovation Strategy at Movement Strategy Center, Race Forward Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy, Laundromat Project Creative Change Fellowship
Peter Wright
Educator (JD, PhD)Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Religion, Colorado College
Co-Chair, Arabic, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Colorado College
Zahra Ayubi
Educator & Author (PhD)Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religion, Dartmouth College
Faculty, Program in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar
"Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society" (2019)
Anaïs Duplan
Poet, Artist, Curator (MFA)Founder & Curator, Center for Afrofuturist Studies
Public Programs fellow, Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem (2017-2019)
Plughaupt Fellow, Iowa Writers Workshop (2017)
"Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture" (2020)
Sylvia Chan-Malik
Educator & Author (PhD, MFA)Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies, Princeton University
Associate Professor, Departments of American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
"Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color and American Islam" (NYU Press, 2018)
Hussein Rashid
Educator, Author, Consultant (PhD)Founder, islamicate, L3C
Lecturer, Columbia University
Credits: "The Secret History of Muslims in America" (New York Times), American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art,
Religion and Comics at Claremont Press, Religion Dispatches, The Islamic Monthly, Cyber Orient
Nebil Husayn
Educator (PhD)Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, University of Miami
Credits: Fulbright fellow, The Hāshimid Genealogy Trust, Middle East Studies Association of North America
Omid Safi
Educator & Author (PhD)Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University
Credits: Duke Islamic Studies Center, Pluralism Project at Harvard University, Islamic Mysticism Group at the American Academy of Religion, Sufi Heart podcast, Illuminated Tours/Courses
Author:
"Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism" (Oneworld, 2003)
"Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition" (Yale, 2018)
Ali Asani
Educator (PhD)Harvard University:
Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures
Director, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program
Faculty, Departments of South Asian Studies and African and African American Studies
Author:
"Celebrating Muhammad: Images of the Prophet in Popular Muslim Poetry" (1995)
"Al-Ummah: A Handbook for an Identity Development Program for Immigrant Muslim Youth in North America" (1996)
partners
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