February 19 – May 29, 2022
Pakistani American artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s immersive installations upend traditional ideas about sculpture. Brilliantly lit from within, they cast their own images onto the walls around them like lanterns and create intricate patterns that dance over visitors as they move through the exhibition.
The works in Let A Million Flowers Bloom use floral and geometric shapes inspired by Islamic architecture to explore notions of masculine and feminine, public and private, religious and secular, and particularly space and refuge, taking on the pain of losing one's home and agency and the hope of establishing them both anew. Agha’s unforgettable art envelops viewers in an enchanting visual environment that inspires awe and invites contemplation about sanctuary and belonging.
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“Exploring the perceived political, social and cultural polarities such as the masculine-feminine, public-private, definite-amorphous, and religious-secular permits me to delve into controversial topics that reflect upon topical themes of cultural identity, global and environmental politics, mass media and social/gender roles.”
– Anila Quayyum Agha
Recorded February 18, 2022
In Conversation with Anila Quayyum Agha
Enjoy a conversation between Director of Art & Learning Jackie Adams and exhibition artist Anila Quayyum Agha as they discuss the process behind the works in Let A Million Flowers Bloom, the themes brought forward by the works, and where the artist sees her practice going in the future.
Recorded March 23, 2022
Art Break with Professor Caroline Nagel
Anila Quayyum Agha’s artwork highlights the challenges that newcomers face in the United States as well as the hopes they bring for a better future. These immigrant stories reveal this country to be both a melting pot that has absorbed millions of people from different places and cultures and a place of deep, persistent exclusion. Caroline Nagel, migration specialist and professor of geography at UofSC, considers the conflicting impulses that run through America’s immigration history. Drawing on her own family’s immigration story and on contemporary narratives of the U.S.-Mexico border, she shows how “becoming American” is, above all, a struggle over the boundaries of the national community.
Book a Field Trip
All K-12 student tours of the Rodin and Agha exhibitions are offered FREE courtesy of Presenting Sponsor First Citizens Bank. So bring the whole class down to the museum!
Sponsors
Supporting Sponsors
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Susan Thorpe and John Baynes
Patron Sponsors
Beth and Matthew Richardson; Dr. Mary Baskin-Waters and Mr. Samuel C. Waters
Grantors
Additional Support
Maria R. Kendall
Image above:
All The Flowers Are For Me (Turquoise), 2017
Lacquered steel and halogen bulb
60" x 60" x 60"