Identity-as-Form: The Mosque in the West
Date Added
02/07/2022
Content Type
Documentary
Category
Researches
Link to Content
Subject Area
Mosques
Author
Nebahat Avcioglu
Publisher Name
By Nebahat Avcioglu
Year of Publication
2007
Description
This article is a reconsideration of the ethical conceptual framework developed by
Edward Said in his book Orientalism
within an art historical context. It focuses
primarily on the relationship between form
and cultural identity in the architecture of
contemporary mosques in Europe and
North America to discuss key theoretical
issues and current methodological tendencies in cross-cultural art history. The aim
is to explore the highly charged topic of
contemporary mosque architecture and
minority cultural identity through the
prism of what I call the Saidian turn. The
article concludes by suggesting that one
of the virtues of the Saidian turn is to
contextualize 'otherness' not as a cultural
dead-end burdened by an over-determining sense of identity but as an opportunity to participate in a material and openended becoming.