Jameel Prize

This wonderful exhibition at the V&A is on till 25 September, and on 12 September the winner will be presented with £25,000. The show is in two parts of the museum - the main Islamic room (the Jameel gallery, which opened in 2006) and the studio gallery on the way to the cafe. 

On the website it says: "The V&A began to collect art from the Islamic world in the 1850s, and it was the first institution in the world to do so with a purpose. The Museum's mission was to reform design, and it was thought that Islamic ideas about structuring patterns and matching decoration to shape and function could improve British design, as indeed they did. The Jameel Prize shows that this link between the Islamic art of the past and contemporary practice is still very much alive."

It's one of the best exhibitions I've seen recently.The work is astonishing and thought-provoking, and beautifully crafted. The shortlist of 10 artists was chosen from submissions, based on work in the past five years, from over 100 nominated artists who have links with diverse countries in the world.

On entering the Studio Gallery, you are confronted with what looks like a shawl (or magic carpet) with simple gold embroidery. On closer inspection the embroidery turns out to be gold-plated pins - 300,000 of them - symbolising the agony of the people in Indian-occupied Kashmir.

The same artist, Aisha Khalid, has created a lined exercise book similar to those used by school pupils in Pakistan for writing practice as they learn the two national languages - which each start from a different end of the book. The 300 pages of the book were created with materials and techniques used in islamic manuscript production. In the Urdu half, the lines have often been 'misprinted'. In the open page, the languages approach closest to each other - blurring and overlapping to reflect the increasing tension between them.

The accompanying video sets out the story -

The mirror mosaic by Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was inspired by the feathers left behind by sparrows on her balcony in Tehran. Perhaps because of the reflection and shiny patterning, this work seemed more superficial - or is it that we distrust bling on any level?

The "bricks" of Noor Ali Chagani are his translation of the principles of Mughal miniature painting into three dimensions. Life Line suggests a supple cloth, but the brittle hard bricks relate to the hard struggle of individuals for daily survival. 

I was interested in the edges of the work both from a structural point of view and in a vaguely conceptual way - neglected areas perhaps; or, rarely seen aspects? - or perhaps because of the double meaning of "edgy" in this context.

Also drawing on the miniature painting tradition, Soody Sharifi has created digital collages she calls "maxiatures" - inserting her own photographic images to draw out the contradictions between reality and fiction, past and present, and public and private spaces. Frolicking Women in the Pool, for example, contrasts photographs of women swimming fully clothed at the seaside in Iran with a 14th-century depiction of women swimming naked.

Hadieh Shafie's work combines simple strips of coloured paper and repetitive meditative practice to create large works with hidden Sufi texts, printed or written in Persian on the strips, which are then rolled up tightly and put in frames -- concealed mystic knowledge. This is part of 26000 Pages; the title reflects the number of strips used -

Lighting conditions in the large gallery are kept low, so my photo of Hazem el Mestikawy's Bridge is a bit blurry. He's covered the cardboard structure with Arabic and English newsprint. The seven movable "bridges" create symbolic contact between West and East, or the economic North and South -

Bita Ghezelayagh's felt tunics (seen sideways on in the upper of the photos) are simple shapes, with the felt embodying qualities of simplicity and resilience. The embellishments originate in talismanic shirts, often worn in battle, on which inscriptions and charms were thought to confer supernatural protection. She has used symbols of resistance, protection and martyrdom taken from Iranian post-revolutionary culture. Attached, embroidered and painted on to the felt, these symbols merge contemporary urban imagery with a rural craft tradition -

Six banners by Rachid Koraichi - Les maitres invisibles - also draw on Sufi traditions of numerology and mystic symbolism, but rather lost their impact through being hung high in the gloom of the gallery.

I somehow missed taking photos of Babak Golkar's architectural models rising from the patterns of handmade carpets, and Hayv Kahraman's "playing cards" series, which was inspired in part by the 40,000 decks of 'archaeology-awareness' playing cards sent to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007. You can see good images of all the works on the V&A's website.

On the way back to the Studio Gallery to cast our vote we noticed another work by Noor Ali Chagani - a section of wall that could have been part of the doorway. Through a small hole you see other brick walls, which seem to stretch back in time as well as space -