00:00:00:000, 00:00:04:0867
[TEXT] The Metropolitan Museum of Art - New Galleries
for the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia
00:00:04.867,00:00:11.600
[TEXT: Navina Najat Haidar, Curator and Coordinator,
Department of Islamic Art]
These galleries aim to really embrace the culture of the Islamic
world as part of the heritage of our one world,
00:00:11.600,00:00:17.467
so not to really show it as a world apart but part of the great
global shared heritage that we have.
00:00:17.467,00:00:25.967
[TEXT: Sheila Canby, Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge,
Department of Islamic Art]
We’ve made efforts to provide the context in which these objects
were used, who owned them, who made them,
00:00:25.967,00:00:30.667
and what importance they have in relation to other things of the
same type.
00:00:30.667,00:00:35.533
[TEXT: Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO,
Metropolitan Museum of Art]
These collections have been off display for a period of seven or
eight years
00:00:35.533,00:00:39.667
while we’ve been rebuilding these galleries and other galleries
around them,
00:00:39.667,00:00:44.133
so this represents the culmination of an enormous amount of work.
00:00:44.133,00:00:48.400
There’s such international attention on the Middle East at
the moment.
00:00:48.400,00:00:54.300
These galleries tell a more complex story. So we’ve worked
to ensure that everybody understands our goal here,
00:00:54.300,00:00:59.700
the educational goals, and that really this can be a shared
understanding.
00:00:59.700,00:01:05.300
[TEXT: Haroon Moghul, Associate Editor, Religion Dispatches]
I wanted to stress how you get people in the Muslim community
excited about their heritage, learning about their history,
00:01:05.300,00:01:09.933
and seeing the Met as a resource that belongs to them just as
much as it belongs to anyone else.
00:01:09.933,00:01:14.267
People will assume that a museum is for certain types of people,
certain audiences, certain income brackets,
00:01:14.267,00:01:19.000
so these are populations that may not be comfortable coming to
a museum or may not even know that this exists.
00:01:19.000,00:01:25.900
[TEXT: Maryam Ekhtiar, Senior Research Associate,
Department of Islamic Art]
We really made a great effort to bring in these people and for them
to be aware of our galleries,
00:01:25.900,00:01:32.200
so that when they open their communities can come and enjoy
and learn in these galleries.
00:01:32.200,00:01:36.233
[TEXT: Hussein Rashid, Adjunct Professor, Hofstra University]
They’ve done amazing outreach to the local New York Muslim
community, they’ve done
00:01:36.233,00:01:42.500
amazing outreach to non-Muslim communities, and making sure that this
isn’t just a gallery by Muslims for Muslims,
00:01:42.500,00:01:47.067
but that this is really about art and the values that art speak to.
00:01:47.067,00:01:53.100
[Haroon Moghul:] History and art have a way of giving people
a sense of grounding, a sense of pride in their origins, in their background,
00:01:53.100,00:01:57.667
in their cultural achievements. When people see this stuff and they
look around they say, wow, this is something that people
00:01:57.667,00:02:02.467
from my cultural universe did and contributed and made, and all
these people are here putting money into it,
00:02:02.467,00:02:08.433
coming to see it, really says to people you have a place here, you
have something to be proud of.
00:02:08.433,00:02:17.600
[Maryam Ekhtiar:] It’s a really great place to start, to create a dialogue, that
this culture has such a rich, sophisticated history.
00:02:17.600,00:02:21.767
So many people from so many different ethnic backgrounds
lived together.
00:02:21.767,00:02:28.900
[TEXT: Florica Zaharia, Conservator in Charge, Department
of Textile Conservation]
It’s hard to see an object and to isolate it in one single part of
the world. I think we are influenced by each other.
00:02:28.900,00:02:32.433
The motifs, the culture doesn’t have barriers.
00:02:32.433,00:02:36.067
[Hussein Rashid:]To be able to bring my own children and
have them see those connections,
00:02:36.067,00:02:41.267
and have them be put in awe that all these people were doing these
really cool things together a thousand years ago.
00:02:41.267,00:02:45.900
What could we do now in the age of the Internet and in the age
of digital art and in the age of
00:02:45.900,00:02:50.267
just throwing clay together and seeing what we can make together as
one big community?
00:02:50.267,00:02:55.400
I think that it’s really one of the most exciting aspects of
this entire project.
00:02:55.400,00:03:00.600
[TEXT: Continue the journey at metmuseum.org/newgalleries2011
Produced by the U.S. Department of State]