SUFISM: Mystical Ecumenism
Travel through the heartlands of Sufism through the
hypnotic images of Iason Athanasiadis.
Photography from Sufism's heartlands by Iason
Athanasiadis
The exhibition runs 5 February through 31 March at
Harvard's Center for Government and International Studies (South Building)
Harvard University, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, 02138
The Dunya Ensemble will perform music from Islam's
mystical traditions at 18:30PM in the Tsai Auditorium
Opening reception sponsored
by the ILEX Foundation
Tehran, Return
SUFISM: Mystical Ecumenism is a visual journey
through Bilad ash-Sham, Khorassan and the Punjab chronicling the movement and
rhythm of zikr, the ecstatic ceremony practiced by Sufi orders around the Muslim
World.
Shot by photojournalist and 2008 Harvard Nieman fellow
Iason Athanasiadis in present-day Iran, Pakistan, Syria and Turkey, it documents
the extraordinary diversity of a mystical Islam gaining in popularity in the
West but worryingly absent from media coverage of the world's most controversial
religion.
Horaman Takht
Rustaye Puria
Iraq
Esfahan
Iraq
Iraq
Istanbul
Kordestan
Pakistan
Lefke
Mashhad
Pakistan
Other Exhibitions:
Exploring the Other:
Contemporary Iran Through the lens of Iason Athanasiadis
A photography exhibition by
Iason
Athanasiadis to foster a deeper understanding by American public on
contemporary Iran. The exhibition is scheduled at CAFAM
in Los Angeles January 25 through March 29,
2009. For more information about this program, please visit:
www.sociarts.com/exploringtheother
Iason
Athanasiadis Bio:
Writer, photographer and television producer,
Iason Athanasiadis has been covering the Middle East, Central Asia and the
southeast Mediterranean since 1999. He earned degrees in Arabic and Modern
Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University (BA) as well as Persian and
Contemporary Iranian Studies at Tehran's School of International Studies (MA).
In 2008, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and an Aristotle Onassis Foundation
scholar.
Athanasiadis lived in Iran
from 2004-2007, covering conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Lebanon
for the international media including the Times, the Christian Science Monitor,
American Prospect, British Journalism Review and the South China Morning Post.
He covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq from Qatar for al-Jazeera, the 2004 Athens
Olympics for BBC World and the 2006 Israeli-Hizbullah war in Lebanon as a
freelancer.
At the same time, his
photography has been featured in solo exhibitions in Germany, Greece and Iran,
and his work published in Der Spiegel and the Los Angeles Times, among other
newspapers and magazines.
Athanasiadis is currently living
in Istanbul.
www.iason.ws
