In the “Interview with Saffron Mustafa” in Shades of Noir, we learn about Camberwell College of Arts student Saffron Mustafa, and her upbringing and experiences as a White British Muslim convert. This text is extremely interesting to me as South Asian Muslim, as it highlights my own subconscious assumptions of Muslims being non-white. These assumptions are echoed in Saffron and her parents (who also converted) life, as they struggled with acceptance, and ideas around home and belonging. She recalls her parent’s experiences with prejudice, with her dad struggling to get a job, due to him changing his name and because he grew out his beard, to align more with Islamic tradition and practices. This text highlights how within my role as a lecturer at LCF, I am focused on values of diversity, ethics and sustainability, and translating these into unit Assessment briefs, and delivery, however when understanding diversity, I think of it in terms of race, gender and sexuality, neglecting faith and disability.
In the text, Saffron talks about how both her and her mother’s relationship with Islam, impacted their creative practice, in very different ways. She mentions her curiosity and interest in Sufism, which is a more mystical space within Islam, and how those teachings enriched her connection to her own sense of self, which allowed her art to become more intentional and developed. This made me reflect on how again within my role as a lecturer, I neglect the more intimate, spiritual side of us as humans, and teach in a standardised western approach. I want to research more about indigenous practices within teaching and learning, as that could be beneficial, particularly as I teach on a creative course. How can we neglect the self, when teaching about self-expression, reflection and our responses to the world? In the West, teachers are often seen as the holders of knowledge, which is to be disseminated to their students. However, now the values are shifting to co-curation and community within learning. So focusing on wellbeing, inner feelings and our ability to reflect are key critical skills.
“Interview with Saffron Mustafa” in Shades of Noir, Higher Power: Religion, Faith, Spirituality and Belief: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/journals/higher-power-religion-faith-spirituality-belief/
2 responses to “Blog 2) Faith”
Dear Kyinat,
Thank you for your very interesting and important post about bringing the spiritual side of our being into the classroom. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I might contribute to providing a broader perspective on the idea of ‘self’ or ‘identity’ away from the Western tradition, which tends to be overly politicised in current Western intellectual, creative and educational disciplines (I am particularly interested in bringing in the posthumanist perspective combined with Shintoism). I increasingly feel the need for a philosophical (and ethical) conversation about who we are and what the idea of ‘the human’ (i.e. ‘the self’) means, and how we can challenge the ‘identity thinking’ that has dominated Western discourse since the Enlightenment. Your thoughts on faith inspire me to ask how we can think about ‘the self’ or ‘identity’ as a culturally and socio-politically determined social being, while at the same time valuing and respecting our inner being, which is spiritually, religiously and philosophically explored, beyond the construction of identity promoted within the Western ideological framework of neo-liberalism and late capitalism…would be fantastic to continue a conversation about this in the Autumn term!
Thank you for your post, I definitely think that within teaching and learning at Ual there is an emphasis to focus on the values of diversity and sustainability. This term in our PgCert we have explored and learnt more about race, gender, faith & disability. It is interesting for us all to examine those areas which we think of on a regular basis and those we possibly neglect – I definitely do not think about our students experience in terms of faith but I hope that through the learnings on this unit, I will be more aware and also equip myself with more knowledge. Even to know the basics such as: where the prayer rooms are in each building we work in or what the Chaplaincy can offer in terms of student support.
You reflect on the impact of Islam and how it has affected both Saffron and her mothers creativity in very different ways. This is fascinating as I would not have thought about creativity being affected by religion.
I think it’s interesting to think about non western concepts of teaching – what might these look like? Sitting with our students together, rather than teaching from the front in a position of authority? I am fascinating by your desire to research indigenous practices within teaching and learning, and the beneficial impact this could have on creative courses. Embracing knowledge sharing as part of that process. I would love to learn more about your findings, what you do creatively with these learnings , how they impact your teaching and how your students respond? On my course away day at the end of this term, we were given an exercise of mapping a green space in a variety of ways. Posing the question of how we could create workshops around bring outside space into our design practice and learning. I look forward to hearing about your results.