Here is what I think it will be one of my lifetime passion: connecting people.
As one can imagine, throughout the endless reading in research I found out so many of the people I read for are connected to each other in one way or another... This is simply history or timeline of thoughts, individuals affecting other people thoughts, ideas are questioned, evaluated, and re-explored...
At some point during my reading I felt the need to see this inter-connectivity... to comprehend the larger web of thoughts and how each unique individual participated in a collective knowledge that reached my hands today.
This was a part of an initial map to understand the first batch of scholars and writers who are one way or another connected to my research field, the field of Islamic design, art, and philosophy. Many of these reference are related to the perennial philosophy, metaphysical and cosmological dimensions in the traditional Islamic art... This is however one part of a larger context, and so I need to expand the map to include contemporary parties...
So the map grew to include creative professionals, academic scholars and institutes or organizations who are participating in informing the face of Islamic creative expressions... Evidently, the need for color coding system and graphics started to emerge in order to create visually accessible data. I owe this developed part to two of the inspiring creatives I met; David McCandless, author of the famous "Information is Beautiful" and "Knowledge is Beautiful" and Ebrahim Nehme; Editor in Chief for the Outpost magazine. In their own unique ways, they allowed me to explore the possibility of disseminating my research knowledge to the wider audience using easy and communicative method: graphics.
Ebrahim Nehme, for example, created a utopian city in one of The Outpost issues, offering the possibility of imagining "world makers" of the Arab world being connected... and seeing their achievements collectively to understand the larger change they contribute to.
For my research, it felt frustrating to barely see a connection between academics and writers with designers and artists. Both contributing to the field in a different way, yet I feel there is an urging need to bridge their contributions together... Although this may seem almost impossible to achieve, yet it can be considered part of an ongoing, project that is always evolving...
Closer look into one group/ category of the larger map; the graphics are adapted from the "world makers"" map from The Outpost magazine for the purpose of creating the initial data and will later form its own graphical language.