Unknown Letter 1

wood

100 by 152 by 10 cm. 39 3/8 by 59 7/8 by 4 in.

Executed in 2015, t✱his work i𓄧s number 1 of an edition of 3.

Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai

Nasseri’s series Unknown Letters was inspired by the life of the calligrapher Ibn Muqla (885-940, Baghdad), who attempted to add𒈔 four letters to the Arabic alphabet in 935. These invented letters got lost and were never added to the alphabet, but his system of proportional letters is still valid today.

Nasseri began an in-depth research of the Arabic script and alphabet, paying particular attention to its forms and aesthetics. ‘While searching for the letters, it occurred to me that Ibn Muqla might have seen missing letters in the stars.’ So he started looking for the constellations that might have formed the shapes of these letters in the night sky over Baghdad that would have been visible in 93🃏5.

Picking out shapes from the stars and using Ibn Muqla’s rules of calligraphy and proportion to create the missing letters, Nasseri’s researc♈h culminates in a series of sensuously carved walnut and steel sculptures.