Lecture: Cities of Islamic Art by artist Laurelie Rae on October 26 at MIT

The Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries is proud to present “Cities of Islamic Art: From Historical Visual Systems to the Formation of Contemporary Islamic Art in North America” a public lecture by Laurelie Rae, an artist, author, and educator based in Istanbul, to be held Monday, October 26, 2026 6:00 pm in Building 3, room 3-133 on the MIT Campus. This lecture uses Cities of Islamic Art, Vol. 2 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, […]

Exhibit: Ink, Stone, and Silver Light

A Century of Cultural Heritage Preservation in Aleppo October 1, 2025 – December 11, 2025 Maihaugen Gallery, MIT Ink, Stone, and Silver Light, an exhibition curated by Rami Alafandi, is now on open to the public in the Maihaugen Gallery of the MIT Libraries. Drawing on archival materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC) to explore a century of cultural heritage preservation in Aleppo, Syria. It takes as its point of departure the work of Kamil al-Ghazzi (1853–1933), the pioneering Aleppine historian whose influential three-volume chronicle, Nahr al-Dhahab fi Tarikh Halab (The River of Gold in the History of […]