Exhibit centering Muslim voices comes to Colorado Springs | Arts & Entertainment

When people hear the word Muslim, Abbas Rattani believes they generally have one of two reactions: They’re either intrigued or lose interest, believing it has nothing to do with them.

Rattani hopes for the former when MIPSTERZ, his arts and culture collective for Muslim, Muslim-adjacent and creative allies, brings “Alhamdu | Muslim Futurism” to Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College. The national touring multimedia, immersive, experiential and collaborative exhibit will open Friday with a reception and run through Jan. 11.

“I’m hoping people’s intrigue outweighs their immediate rejection of making associations or judgments about the work largely because of how it’s titled,” Rattani said from where he lives in Boston.

“This hearkens back to the movie ‘Black Panther,’ which was marketed as an Afrofuturist film. People who weren’t Black or of Afro American heritage still went to see the film and were excited about it so much that Disney commissioned a sequel. In that same vein we hope people indulge in their curiosity in the title and attend.”

The show, which will take up the entire second floor of the museum, will feature about 100 works, all revolving around five themes: imagination, identity, community, resistance and liberation. Works, including paintings, photos, illustrations, installations, digital media, soundscapes and virtual reality, are by artists who are commonly marginalized in contemporary art spaces, with a focus on Muslims, Muslim-adjacent artists and allied artists.

“Not every artist in the exhibit identifies as being Muslim,” Rattani said, “but in some way identifies as being a marginalized artist with works that fit in some way to the larger Islamic tradition.”

The exhibit also will include three immersive installations: a visual musical installation that plays on the concept of trance as meditation, an installation that plays on the concept of prayer as transcendence and a portal into the metaphysical world, and an interactive installation called “The Mirage,” which invites visitors to answer a question and watch as their answers change the work.

“In a parallel universe that you’re part of, or an alternate world, that centers Muslim voices or marginalized voices, what is the way you will contribute?” Rattani said.

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“The U.S. is 75% white. The voices centered on a daily basis are white voices. People who are not white are living in a world that’s utopic for a certain class of people. What would it look like if you centered another group of people?”

Two Springs artists, Lupita Carrasco and Felicia Kelly, will contribute works to the show, all focused on artists and others living in Gaza. They’ve developed friendships with Gazans via social media and decided to submit works by Gazan artists when the FAC held a call for entries for the traveling show.

“We said this is Muslim futurism,” Kelly said. “This is the reality of these artists and we wanted to get their stories told.”

Works by five Gazan artists, who took cellphone photos of their pieces and sent them to Carrasco and Kelly, will be on display. One Gazan video artist, who escaped to Egypt, also will be included.

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“One girl has been working in the camps with children doing artwork, helping them process what they’ve seen,” Carrasco said.

“The piece she submitted is done with scraps of paper and colored pencil and whatever materials she had available. A lot of artists don’t have access to paper sometimes or anything to draw with.”

Carrasco, a painter, also will display the 17 portraits of Gazans she did as a way to help draw attention to their GoFundMe campaigns. Each portrait will have a QR code so visitors can learn their stories.

“These people on the other side of the world are just like you or me but living an entirely different experience,” Carrasco said. “I’ve always seen humanity in all people, but I have learned so much about this other culture where societal norms dictate generosity built on tight knit family and community.”