A gorgeous new exhibition has opened at London's British Museum. Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam explores the relationship between Islam and society, focusing on the Hajj, a spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca that all able Muslims have a sacred duty to undertake at least once. Hajj is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and the only one that non-Muslims are forbidden from participating in, making it a near-impossible concept to grasp for non-Muslims.
Hajj takes three strands - Mecca and its origins; the journey itself; and the Hajj today. Through photographs, archaeological remains, manuscripts, textiles and personal accounts the exhibition details the importance, significance and power of the Hajj but alongside these are three contemporary artworks that, I think, provide a non-Muslim visitor with a better understanding of Hajj than words are capable of doing.
Black Cube II
French-Algerian artist Kader Attia is known for creating pieces that show the effects of Western capitalism on North Africa and the Middle East. Like many of his works, the piece chosen for the exhibition, Black Cube II (2005), is deceptively simple.
Attia has painted, in black acryllic on white canvas, a roughly cuboid shape. That's it. There is something strangely tactile about it though, and this makes perfect sense once you understand that the painting represents the Ka'ba, a cube-shaped building at the heart of the the al-Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca.
The Ka'ba is believed to have been constructed by Abraham and his son Ishmael, and where Mohammed received his revelations; it is the most sacred building in Islam and it is the Ka'ba that Muslims face when they pray. Some 3 million pilgrims go on Hajj each year; Attia says his painting represents the shared desire to get as close to the Ka'ba as possible, and to touch it.
Magnetism
Further on in the exhibition is Magnetism 2012, by Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater al-Ziad. Next to four black-and-white photographs sits an extraordinary sculpture - again, simple execution but with complex meaning. The sculpture comprises one cuboid magnet and thousands of tiny iron filings, the concentration of which naturally becomes denser the closer the filings are to the magnet.
Strikingly beautiful in its simplicity, it signifies pilgrims bowing as one to pray towards the Ka'ba. There are photographs in the exhibition depicting the vast masses of people crushed into the mosque but, despite its miniature scale, Magnetism 2012 manages to convey the crowded feeling better than the photographs do. The starkness of it and its relative isolation on a plinth in the middle of the gallery also make it seem very peaceful.
You and Only You
Where Ahmed's piece is a lovely evocation of the camaraderie of the Hajj, Idris Khan's work, created especially for the British Museum, shows how the Hajj is unique for each pilgrim.
You and Only You is a huge canvas covered in lines of text that converge on a single central point. As with the filings in Magnetism, the text becomes denser and more unintelligible as it gets closer to the circle's origin (the Ka'ba) and there are more 'people'. It is a busier, less calm work than Ahmed's, but no less effective in demonstrating how individual the Hajj is despite the companionship of the experience.
Review
For a review of the exhibition as a whole, click here.
Jennie Gillions - Jennie Gillions has a History and Archaeology degree. She is a published writer with particular interests in art, history and mental ...
