Saba Taj’s Interstellar Uber // Negotiations with God:
Queer Articulations in Contemporary Islamic Art
Sascha Crasnow
Synopsis:
This talk introduces queer expressions in contemporary Islamic art through an analysis of Saba Taj’s multi-media kinetic sculpture Interstellar Uber // Negotiations with God. The work, which depicts al-Buraq, the human-headed steed upon which Muhammad rode during his Night Journey, does not have a gender. This, and its mobility between the earthly and spiritual realms, makes its liminal nature ripe for articulations of queer and non-binary Muslim artists. Through an incorporation of elements related to their Pakistani-Kashmiri, American, Muslim, and queer identities, Saba Taj articulates what I call their “intersectional liminality” through the sculpture.
References:
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Crasnow, Sascha. “The Diversity of the Middle: Mythology in Intersectional Trans Representation.” Journal of Visual Culture 19, no. 2 (2020): 212‒224.
Dentice, Dianne and Michelle Dietert. “Liminal Spaces and the Transgender Experience.” Theory in Action 8, no. 2 (April 2015): 69–96.
Gopinath, Gayatri, Unruly Visions: The Aesthetic Practices of Queer Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.
Gruber, Christiane. “al-Burāq.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition, edited by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson, 40‒41. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
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Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005.
Citation:
Sascha Crasnow, “Saba Taj’s Interstellar Uber // Negotiations with God: Queer Articulations in Contemporary Islamic Art,” Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, published 20 May 2021.
Sascha Crasnow (she/her) is the pedagogy coordinator for Khamseen and an Assistant Professor of Art History at Drake University. Her research focuses on contemporary art from the SWANA region, with a particular interest in how artists respond to their socio-political conditions, race, gender & sexuality. Her writing has appeared in publications such as the Journal of Visual Culture and Lateral. Her book project, The Age of Disillusionment: Palestinian Art After the Intifadas, is under review with Duke University Press.