My Mother’s Extraordinary Life in Beirut of the Late 50s & Early 60s | Venetia Porter
An eclectic and vibrant conversation with Venetia Porter — former curator of Islamic and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art at the British Museum — about the life of her iconic mother Thea Porter across Palestine, Syria and Beirut in the 50s, her own work at the British Museum, and the purpose of curation. Reflecting on an extraordinary moment in time when Thea Porter was a fixture of Beirut’s creative circles, Venetia shares what it was like to unearth her mother’s personal archive of photos, letters and memories from that era. Moving on to her own work at the British Museum, she sheds light on what she believes the role of curation and the curator should be, what it means to build a “universal” museum, and whether it’s possible to establish this kind of institution in the Arab world. Finally, Venetia offers insight on how museums are responding to the increasingly charged question of how they obtained the objects in their collections and how she navigated her position as a non-Muslim when curating an exhibition about the history of the Hajj.
Venetia Porter is an Honorary Research Fellow at the British Museum. Formerly Curator of Islamic and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art at the British Museum, her published titles include "Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa", "The Islamic World: A History in Objects", "Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam" and "Word Into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East".
Her mother, Thea Porter, known as the queen of 1960s Bohemian Chic, fused a love for Central Asian textiles with her personal experiences in Beirut working between Fashion & Interior Design. Her illustrious tapestry kaftans, Iraqi "Samawa" carpet coats, and antique chiffons saturated the pages of the era’s British Vogue. During the key decades of British boho-revival, beloved Porter designs were worn by the likes of Anita Pallenberg, Faye Dunaway, Lauren Hutton, the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd.
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Thea Porter’s Scrapbook
The Afikra Podcast
The afikra Podcast is our flagship series featuring experts from academia, art, media, urban planning, and beyond, who are helping document and shape the histories and cultures of the Arab world through their work.
