Nevine Nasser is a London based architect and practising Sufi Muslim (Sufism is the mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God). She designed the The School of Sufi Teaching in Bethnal Green, London, a beautiful space for Sufi practitioners of the Naqshbandī-Mujaddidī Sufi order. Nevine attempted to reclaim the transformative power of classic examples of Islamic sacred architecture and geometry in a way that transcended notions of typology, location, time, style and scale. She explored relationships between the imagination, the spiritual heart, spiritual interpretation and Divine energy in the process of creating designs that conform to a Divine order. Her portraits, shot at the School of Sufi Teaching, offer viewers a completely different perspective on Islam, one that is lacking in current Western media. At the core of my work as a photographer has always been the desire to portray Muslims in a much more nuanced way and being able to portray a Sufi Muslim woman with such a similar background and interests has been very important and transformative for me. This series is not only a celebration of Nevine as a person, but also emphasises and explores the beauty of Islamic sacred geometry, calligraphy, Sufi practices and the transformational power
of art and architecture.
