“Cities of Islamic Art: From Historical Visual Systems to the Formation of Contemporary Islamic Art in North America.”
Building 3, 133, Middlesex
Dear friends and colleagues, The Aga Khan Documentation Center (AKDC) and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) at MIT cordially invite you to join artist Laurelie Rae for a public lecture titled “Cities of Islamic Art: From Historical Visual Systems to the Formation of Contemporary Islamic Art in North America.” Date: Monday, October 26, 2026 Time: 6:00 PM Location: MIT, Room 3-133 Open to all; no registration required The Lecture The lecture uses Cities of Islamic Art, Vol. 2, now part of the permanent collection of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, as both an object and a methodology to examine Islamic art as a mobile system of visual knowledge rather than a fixed historical style. Beginning with historical surfaces from Isfahan, Istanbul, Damascus, Cairo, and Granada, the talk traces how motifs migrate across ceramics, tiles, manuscripts, and architecture to form the fabric of visual culture and heritage known as “Islamic Art.” The lecture then turns to Rae’s doctoral research, examining how these visual systems are reframed and redefined by visual and sonic artists within the North American diaspora. The artist’s book functions here as a curatorial and analytical device—a way of reorganizing visual knowledge outside conventional art-historical and museological categories. Laurelie Rae Laurelie Rae is a teaching artist who has lived and made art in Istanbul since 2014. She holds the position of Vice Head of the Department of Fine Arts at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Türkiye. Rae completed her master’s degree in 2016 at the U.K.’s Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts before moving to Istanbul to continue her academic and practical studies of traditional and contemporary art. Her areas of interest include Islamic ceramics, drawing, and illustration. She is an author and museum education consultant specializing in traditional and Islamic art methods and techniques. She is the author of Islamic Art & Architecture: Memories of Seljuk & Ottoman Masterpieces. In 2019, she completed a second master’s degree in Visual Art and Communication Design at Sabancı University, where she explored contemporary art and art history. Laurelie combines her love of traditional ceramic imagery with contemporary illustration and ceramic works that address contemporary issues, including her ongoing projects on female Muslim travelers and West African Islamic art. She has led workshops in London, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Toronto, Montreal, and Istanbul. Her online classes have also been warmly received by institutions and participants around the world. We look forward to having you join us for this special lecture. On behalf of AKPIA and AKDC