This July marks a significant milestone for London’s cultural landscape as The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum celebrates its 20th anniversary. Opened to the public in July 2006, the gallery has spent the last two decades serving as a premier home for the arts of the Islamic Middle East, housing a diverse and breathtaking collection that bridges historical heritage with contemporary creative discourse. To mark this platinum anniversary, the V&A has curated a vibrant year-long programme of new displays, live craft demonstrations, public conversations, and academic conferences, while looking ahead to future initiatives that continue to foster cross-cultural dialogue.
Two Decades of Preserving Islamic Art
Established in July 2006 through the generous support of the Jameel family, the gallery was created to provide a dedicated, state-of-the-art home for the museum’s extensive holdings of Islamic art. Today, the space brings together approximately 400 exceptional objects originating from regions spanning from Spain to Central Asia, dating from the 8th century right up to the present day. Within its walls, visitors can encounter a rich tapestry of human creativity, where ceramics, intricate carpets, finely wrought metalwork, delicate woodwork, historic glass, and illuminated manuscripts sit side by side. True to the V&A’s founding ethos, the gallery remains entirely free and accessible to all visitors.
The 2006 opening marked the beginning of a profound and lasting relationship between the Jameel family and the V&A. This partnership expanded further in 2009 with the establishment of the Jameel Prize, a prestigious international award that explores the dynamic relationship between contemporary artistic practice and rich Islamic traditions. Supported throughout this anniversary year by Community Jameel, the museum has used the 20-year milestone to reflect on the evolution of museum practices regarding Islamic collections while inviting the public to engage directly with living traditions.
A Year of Celebration and Living Traditions
Throughout its anniversary year, the gallery has placed making and craftsmanship at the very heart of its programming. By inviting contemporary artisans to demonstrate their skills inside the gallery space, the V&A has successfully bridged the gap between historic museum objects and the living traditions that originally inspired them.
In May, coinciding with London Craft Week, the museum welcomed Egyptian textile artist Hany Abd El-Kader. In a sold-out talk introduced by Seif El Rashidi of the Barakat Trust, El-Kader demonstrated khayamiyya, the intricate traditional art of Egyptian cotton appliqué. A select group of visitors also participated in a hands-on workshop, working directly alongside the master artisan to create their own pieces of khayamiyya to take home.
The celebrations reached a temporal peak on July 17, exactly twenty years to the day since the gallery first opened its doors. To mark the occasion, the museum hosted "The Islamic art Museumscape," a major conference designed to take the pulse of how institutions around the world curate, interpret, and engage with Islamic collections today. The discussions focused heavily on how thematic approaches and curatorial trends have shifted over the two decades since the gallery’s inauguration. Later that month, the anniversary momentum continued with a special Friday Late event titled "Body as a Vessel," produced in collaboration with Shubbak, which celebrated the vibrant breadth of contemporary Arab and Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) creativity.
The autumn season brought further international collaboration during the London Design Festival in September. The gallery introduced a striking new installation by artist Aziza Kadyri, which weaves gracefully through the historic arches. Concurrently, Kadyri’s collaborator, Uzbek embroidery artist Yulduz Mukhiddinova, travelled from Uzbekistan to lead immersive suzani embroidery sessions both inside the gallery and at the museum’s "Awakenings" Friday Late event. Approximately 80 participants had the unique opportunity to learn traditional stitchwork, accompanied by a captivating live performance from Uzbek singer-songwriter Laylo.
Reflecting on History and Evolution
Reflecting on the milestone, Mariam Rosser-Owen, Curator of the Middle East in the V&A’s Asia Department, highlighted the unique historical lineage of the museum’s collections.
"As curators of Middle Eastern art, we are so fortunate to be able to work with one of the best collections of Islamic art in the world," Rosser-Owen noted. "The collecting history is so interesting as well. Collecting of Middle Eastern art began in the 1850s, when the Museum was founded, to improve British design. Over the next century the V&A’s holdings of Islamic art grew to encompass outstanding and world-famous objects. At the same time, these holdings played a real part in inspiring some of Britain’s greatest artists and designers, including William Morris."
Rosser-Owen also pointed to the rich archival holdings that preserve the provenance of these collections. The physical space occupied by the gallery today originally opened in 1950 as the institution’s first dedicated area to showcase the finest pieces of its Islamic collection. Although the space received a refresh in the 1970s, the formation of a dedicated Middle East curatorial section in 2002 made a comprehensive overhaul necessary. Thanks to the generosity of the Jameel family, the 2006 renovation allowed the V&A’s world-class collections to be presented in an environment tailored to their historical and aesthetic significance.
Fady Jameel, Family Ambassador of Community Jameel and Chairman and Founder of Art Jameel, emphasized the broader cultural impact of the gallery’s legacy.
"The Jameel Gallery at the V&A anchors the Jameel family’s long-standing commitment to supporting and celebrating Islamic art," Jameel stated. "Over the past 20 years, the gallery has become a platform for research, public engagement, and contemporary creative practice, showing how historic artistic traditions continue to evolve. Through my family’s partnership with the V&A, and Community Jameel’s wider work supporting traditional arts and craftsmanship, we remain committed to fostering partnerships that preserve these traditions, while ensuring they continue to reach new audiences."
Five Essential Objects to Experience
For visitors exploring the newly refreshed displays or returning to familiar favourites, curators recommend taking time to view several standout pieces that define the collection’s historical depth.
Chief among them is the legendary Ardabil Carpet, crafted in 1539–1540 for the shrine of Shaykh Safi al-Din in northwestern Iran, widely recognized as the oldest dated carpet in the world. When the gallery opened in 2006, a specialized central glass case was engineered to display the carpet flat on the floor, exactly as intended by its makers. To protect its delicate natural dyes from degradation, the carpet is illuminated for ten minutes on every hour and half-hour.
Another remarkable highlight is the rock crystal ewer, carved in Cairo between 1000 and 1050 for the imperial treasuries of the Fatimid rulers. The object demonstrates astonishing craftsmanship, featuring microscopic details of birds of prey swooping on horned animals amidst swirling palmette scrolls, all sculpted from a single block of solid rock crystal.
The gallery also houses the towering minbar made for Sultan Qa’itbay in Cairo between 1468 and 1496. This monumental wooden pulpit features complex geometric patterns assembled from hundreds of precisely carved pieces of wood and ivory.
Near the gallery entrance, visitors are greeted by a lustreware bowl with a ship, produced in Málaga, Spain, between 1425 and 1550. The piece depicts a ship sailing across its centre, its metallic glaze shimmering dynamically as viewers move around it.
Additionally, a new display case at the rear of the gallery features a selection of 20th-century Iranian prints stemming from a 2023 gift by Tarlan Rafiee and Yashar Samimi Mofakham. These works highlight leading figures of Iran’s pre-revolutionary modern art movement from the 1950s to the 1970s, including an untitled 1975 screenprint by Nasser Ovissi, a notable pioneer of the Saqqakhaneh movement.
Looking Ahead
As the anniversary year continues, the V&A has further programming scheduled before the close of 2026. In November, during Islamic Art Week, artist Mariam Ashraf will perform a live-streamed public demonstration of plaster carving—the traditional technique utilized to craft decorative architectural windows set with coloured glass, similar to the 19th-century Cairene examples featured in the gallery collection.
Twenty years after welcoming its first visitors, The Jameel Gallery continues to serve as an active bridge between past and present, uniting extraordinary historical artifacts, living craftsmanship, and contemporary artistic voices under one roof at V&A South Kensington. Admission to Room 42 is completely free, and no advance booking is required for visitors wishing to explore the space.