Dr. Nancy Demerdash-Fatemi's doctoral work and forthcoming publication focuses on the architecture and urban planning of postwar reconstruction schemes in Tunisia in the wake of the Second World War, but she has also written on issues of artistic activism, censorship, and museum curation of modern and contemporary arts of the Maghreb and Middle East. Demerdash-Fatemi studied Islamic art and architecture and modern architectural history, respectively, at the Aga Khan Program of Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (S.M.Arch.S.) and Princeton University (M.A., Ph.D.).
Producing this lush miniature involved many Persian artists—and likely some familiarity with Chinese sources.
Orientalism constructs cultural, spatial, and visual mythologies and stereotypes that are often connected to the geopolitical ideologies of governments and institutions.