![Screenshot-2024-06-09-at-5.24.34PM-aspect-ratio-1600-1000](https://images.agakhanmuseum.org/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-09-at-5.24.34PM-aspect-ratio-1600-1000.png?resize=1584%2C990&gravity)
Night in the Garden of Love
November 10, 2023–May 5, 2024
Temporary Exhibitions Gallery
This exhibition has closed.
Enjoy virtually with a 3D tour.
Gardens — whether real or imagined — can be spaces of creation and optimism in the face of the climate crisis.
Night in the Garden of Love is a multisensory exhibition by British artist Shezad Dawood, inspired by African-American Muslim musician, composer, and polymath (Allāmah) Dr. Yusef Lateef (1920 – 2013). In this multilayered exhibition, the garden serves as the starting point for a creative futuristic and intercultural conversation in which art and music can help transform the individual and the environment. Dawood sparks a transformational mindset as audiences are guided through VR, textile works, music, scent, and imagined plants that respond to digital algorithms.
In Dialogue
Night in the Garden of Love is a dynamic conversation between Dawood and Lateef’s artistic practices and philosophical approaches, inspiring visions of alternative futures through transformative creativity in a turbulent world. This call-and-response between these gifted practitioners is reminiscent of exchanges in musical improvisation. Environmentalism is positioned as a search for solutions that take place in the community and through creativity.
![Entrance to the Night in the Garden of Love exhibition displaying a textile to the left and the title to the right](https://images.agakhanmuseum.org/uploads/2024/06/WEBCOPY_NightInTheGardenOfLove_AgaKhanMuseum_AlyManji_02-scaled.jpg?fit=50%2C40)
![Gallery space with incense sticks of various fragrances on display](https://images.agakhanmuseum.org/uploads/2024/06/WEBCOPY_NightInTheGardenOfLove_AgaKhanMuseum_AlyManji_38-scaled.jpg?fit=50%2C40)
Step into an enthralling VR environment inspired by Lateef’s novella, listen to Lateef’s music and view his drawings, explore a stunning collection of textile paintings, and watch algorithmically generated plants flourish and sway harmoniously as they respond to a new Autophysiopsychic musical score performed by Lateef’s former collaborators and peers. Night in the Garden of Love weaves elements of fiction, virtual reality, and real-life experiences, placing you at the heart of a creative conversation between Dawood and Lateef.
About the Artists
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View summary about Shezad Dawood
Shezad Dawood
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View summary about Yusef Lateef
Yusef Lateef
Special Projects Curator
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Marianne Fenton