A treat from the New Yorker's Book Bench: the poetry of Rumi in a multimedia installation
Whether you are a "wanderer, worshipper, or lover of leaving," there might be something for you at Zahra Partovi's multimedia Rumi installation, "
A Poet Speaks," on display at the
Center for Book Arts until the end of this week. For me, it was the nonchalant coexistence of art and office life: Partovi's "temple" is located on the way to the bathroom, right next to the microwave and coffeemaker. Walls of Rumi poetry (created by threading poem print-outs through sheets of mull cloth) are scattered throughout the Center's printing studio. When a phone rang at the reception, one side of a conversation about directions to the Center blended with the sound of recorded voices reading from the Diwan-e-Shams and Masnavi. And the to and fro of staff members on the way to the copier or back from the bathroom mirrored video footage of feet, shot from ground level. "I don't really understand the feet video," I confessed to James Copeland, who works at the Center. "I think of the syllables of poetry, feet on the move," he said dreamily. Of course. Here gallery and workplace blur into one. After all,
Within the Kaaba there are no rules
About facing Mecca.
—Jalaluddin Rumi
Whether you are a "wanderer, worshipper, or lover of leaving," there might be something for you at Zahra Partovi's multimedia Rumi installation, "A Poet Speaks," on display at the Center for Book Arts until the end of this week. For me, it was the nonchalant coexistence of art and office life: Partovi's "temple" is located on the way to the bathroom, right next to the microwave and coffeemaker. Walls of Rumi poetry (created by threading poem print-outs through sheets of mull cloth) are scattered throughout the Center's printing studio. When a phone rang at the reception, one side of a conversation about directions to the Center blended with the sound of recorded voices reading from the Diwan-e-Shams and Masnavi. And the to and fro of staff members on the way to the copier or back from the bathroom mirrored video footage of feet, shot from ground level. "I don't really understand the feet video," I confessed to James Copeland, who works at the Center. "I think of the syllables of poetry, feet on the move," he said dreamily. Of course. Here gallery and workplace blur into one. After all,
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