Academic Essay
Building an Islamic Art Museum
A Critical Analysis of Existing Collections Worldwide and Their Development
In early 2023 it was announced that the Islamic Sciences and Research Academy (ISRA), together with the support of Charles Sturt University (CSU), had successfully secured a $26.3million grant to build the first Islamic Arts Museum in Sydney, given as part of the WestInvest Community Projects Grants initiative by the New South Wales state government. The new museum — the second in Australia after the Melbourne-based Islamic Museum of Australia — aims to facilitate the artistic and cultural output of the Muslim community whilst encouraging and engaging in intercultural and interfaith dialogue, and educating the Muslim community and wider society about Muslims’ heritage and art.
The museum aims to fill a void within Australia in the representation of the Islamic arts, which is not only largely overlooked, but also inaccessible where available. Since Dr Sam Bowker — an expert on Islamic art based at Charles Sturt University — published an article on the invisibility of Islamic Art in Australia in 2015, the representation of Islamic art in Australia has arguably worsened — both ANU’s Persian Art and CSU’s Introduction to Islamic Art and Design undergraduate modules have been discontinued and only…
