Sughra Hussainy is one of the foremost living practitioners of Persian calligraphy and illumination, a tradition with roots in the manuscript ateliers of the medieval Islamic world and among the oldest continuously practiced art forms in Central Asia. Trained in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has banned music, sculpture, and figurative art, and where women have been squeezed out of nearly every public creative space. Grinding her own pigments from lapis lazuli and madder root, she works by hand with materials and methods largely unchanged for centuries, carrying the tradition from Kabul to institutions including the Smithsonian. In this live demonstration, watch her draw pigment and line by hand. A rare chance to see a centuries-old tradition practiced in real time and against odds.
Energy, Environment, & Transition
Studio Stage: A Pro-Market Path to Decarbonization
Efforts to decarbonize the global economy have increasingly run into political and practical challenges, with top-down approaches often proving fragmented, slow, or contested. In this Studio Stage talk, Professor Karthik Ramanna explores a pro-market approach to decarbonization, highlighting how rigorous…
