BRATTLEBORO-Artist Saks Afridi, whose multimedia exhibition "SpaceMosque," currently on view at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), has been recognized by such disparate entities as the United Nations, the art publication Artforum, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
On Thursday, Aug. 29, at 7:30 p.m., Afridi and the curator of "SpaceMosque," Sadaf Padder, will discuss the exhibition in an online talk presented by BMAC.
Afridi began working on "SpaceMosque" in 2017. The exhibition contains elements of Islamic mysticism, South Asian folklore, science fiction, architecture, calligraphy, and technology, and it tells the story of a spectacular vessel called a SpaceMosque that has arrived from the future.
The vessel grants all humans on Earth one prayer every 24 hours, and appears in many iterations, adjusting its appearance to each person. Their prayers become currency, leading to both miracles and tragedies. Eventually, the SpaceMosque disappears and is forgotten, its existence somehow wiped from collective human memory.
Informed by a background in marketing and design as well as a global upbringing, Afridi uses the photographs, artifacts, and multimedia objects in "SpaceMosque" to explore capitalism, spirituality, historical record, and speculative imagination.
The work is part of an art genre and philosophy that Afridi invented and calls "Sci-Fi Sufism," in which people can, as he puts it, "discover galaxies and worlds within themselves." Afridi invites viewers to dream, wonder, and reflect: If you encountered the SpaceMosque, what would you pray for? What consequences could your prayer have on your own life, or on humanity?
Afridi was born in Pakistan and is now based in New York City. He has exhibited his work in galleries and museums around the world. He describes his art practice as an exploration of life as an "Insider Outsider," which he defines on his website as "achieving a sense of belonging while also feeling out of place, finding happiness in a state of temporariness, and re-contextualizing dominant historical and cultural narratives with contemporary ones."
According to curator Padder, by centering Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, Afridi expands society's understanding of an often misrepresented religion. Islamic art is often "relegated to an exotic 'other' that exists only to be collected, exploited, and owned," she says. But Afridi's "neo-artifacts" can open up "nuanced conversations about ancestral and familial ties, contemporary identity within a living tradition, and world-building beyond colonial frameworks."
Afridi studied advertising at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and sculpture at the Art Students League of New York. He is a recipient of several awards, including a United Nations Award for Peace and Understanding.
Padder is a Brooklyn-based independent curator, writer, and community organizer focused on under-recognized contemporary art movements and histories related to the South Asian and Caribbean diaspora. She has curated exhibitions across the country, focusing on themes of social justice, futurism, radical liberation movements, climate change, and neo-mythology.
She has written for numerous art publications and is a Create Change alumna with the Laundromat Project, a featured curator with Artsy, and a 2022–23 Emily J. Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellow through the online arts newsletter, Hyperallergic.
"SpaceMosque" is on view at BMAC through Saturday, Oct. 19. Admission to the online talk is free, but registration is required at brattleboromuseum.org. For accessibility questions and requests, email [email protected] or call 802-257-0124, ext. 101.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.