Re-dressing the Renaissance

As architecture students with a keen interest in art history, we began analyzing and re-interpreting the art we so admired. It started out as a pleasurable pastime which eventually evolved into a more meaningful research endeavor. The overarching themes of our recreations are to re-consider the rather limited representation, per today’s context, in celebrated work from the past and to spark conversation about the accepted conventions of portrayed figures.

Our work pays homage to the masters by re- imagining their artwork and re-positioning them in this place, day and age. The reenactments of these paintings explore multiple themes with a primary focus on the re-gendering of a traditionally all-male ensemble. The figures in the painting have also been re-represented in terms of regional and religious diversity. To make it more culturally specific, we re-costumed the figures using traditional attire such as sarees and shaylas.

Additionally, we re-contextualized the painting by using familiar settings on the American University of Sharjah campus that feature similar compositional elements. In terms of the objects depicted in the paintings, we re-placed them with tools that are essential to our architectural education. As much as the reenactments were about generating significant images, we realized that the process itself created a sense of community that was more meaningful than the final result. This, for us, re-defined what we considered most important about the effort and its relevance to our experiences as students in college. These images were all taken with all the participants posing for a single shot. The backgrounds were then edited and photoshopped to create the final result. The independent work received acclaim in regional and international media. The School of Athens reenactment is on permanent display in the College of Architecture, Art and Design in Sharjah.

In collaboration with Aashish Rajesh, Divya Mahadevan, Gopika Praveen, Farah Monib, Nabeela Zeitoun and Zahra’a Nasralla.