Infinite spaces of the Beloved

Abstract

Infinite Spaces of the Beloved recuperates certain characteristics of Persian Sufi poetry and Farsi literature as contemporary artistic material. In exploring the relationship between the poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi and his spiritual teacher and friend Shams-i-Tabrizi, this project attempts to experientially re-present certain aspects of Islamic mysticism through frameworks of contemporary post-conceptual art. More specifically, it will identify parallels and connections between these radically fictionalised, hypothetical and materially-infinite, as well as profoundly uncertain forms and contemporary experiences. Infinite Spaces of the Beloved articulates twenty-first century experiences of being through the creative possibilities located within hybrid cultural forms and languages. By activating meanings and nonsenses created through linguistic diasporas—using fragmented text and sound as a means of incarnating otherness, deterritorialisation and displacement—the research imagines utopic alternatives to the increasingly brutal and dystopic realities of twenty-first century existence.