Conference

Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past

17-18 May 2018

Christie Room, John Rylands Library, Deansgate

The University of Manchester

I take great pleasure in welcoming you to the conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’. Thank you all for coming, some of you from very far away, from the East as far away as Iran and from the West, the USA.

We are most fortunate that our venue and location for this two-day conference is the historic John Rylands Library, Deansgate in central Manchester. I thank the Librarian and Curators for their permission to hold it here. The John Rylands Library was opened to the public on January 1, 1900, endowed by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands, the English entrepreneur and philanthropist who died in 1888. Today the John Rylands Library (JRL) is part of The University of Manchester Library. In this building are housed many thousands of rare manuscripts, fragments, documents and books. What is most interesting for our purposes is that it has a collection of nearly a thousand Persian MSS, which the JRL continues to treasure very highly. There is currently a concerted effort by the JRL to catalogue, digitise and research this wonderful Persian collection. There will be a brief opportunity to view some of the beauties of this collection during the conference.

The conference on Persian and Iranian art is hosted by the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester, where the Department of Middle Eastern Studies has been in existence since the beginning of the last century: Persian and other Iranian languages have long been taught here, alongside Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac and Turkish. In this conference we bring together scholars who are working internationally in Persian/Iranian art and architecture.

The history of the art and architecture of Iran is divided into two fields, one much more populated than the other. One of these is the widely studied historical field with its focus on pre-modern, medieval and ancient ‘Persian’ art and architecture; the other that of modern and contemporary ‘Iranian’ art and architecture. There is often little communication or appreciation between these two fields: modern and contemporary artists and scholars do reflect on classical art and architecture, but from the historical side there tends to be considerably less inclination to look into the modern and contemporary field. Methodological practices also differ: contemporary art history uses 20^th and 21^st century theoretical perspectives, whereas in the historical field, more often than not, historical and traditional art historical methods are used. Yet, the two fields are profoundly connected –Persian and Iranian art is by definition one great field: there has always been a looking back at, and awareness of, the past among historians of art, and modern and contemporary artists too are rooted in, and make reference to, the past. It is to be hoped that in this conference we can talk to one another across disciplinary and area boundaries and make progress in overcoming a false separation that has divided us in the past.

Aida Foroutan

Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Dr Siavush Randjbar-Daemi. Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Dr Hamid Keshmirshekan. Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Mr Bobak Etminani. Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Dr Aida Foroutan. Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Professor Paul Luft. Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Chris Foster; courtesy Aida Foroutan/University of Manchester

Professor Robert Hillenbrand. Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Aida Foroutan

Professor Abbas Daneshvari Day 1 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England ©Aida Foroutan

Panel discussion – Day 2 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England. Photo by Mina Talaee

Plenary Discussion session – Day 2 at the Conference ‘Modern Iranian Art and Architecture in the Shadow of the Classical Persian Past’, May 17-18 2018 at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester, England. Photo by Janet Rady

Sponsors

This conference is supported by a research grant from the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS) and the Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF). For more information on BIPS and grant opportunities please see https://www.bips.ac.uk/, and for the IHF http://www.iranheritage.org/.