BEYOND THE FRAME: MARGINALIA AND PARERGONALITY IN ART AND THE 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS - using the frame tale of the 1001 nights to generate 1001 artworks

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The frame tale and motifs of the 1001 Nights are a starting point to generate 1001 artworks. The 1001 Nights' frame tale includes tales within tales: I will investigate this through interdisciplinary and visual research. 1000 tales weave through the main tale (Shahrazad saves her life, telling King Shahriyar cliffhanger tales). A parergon is an auxiliary work, here as the 1000 tales relating to the main tale. The research is to make 1001 artworks, not illustrations, that will interrogate the 1001 Nights differently.I propose a new, visual reading of the Nights where Shahrazad the storyteller is all-powerful in that she holds the key to the entire 1001 Nights in her head, just as the artist can be all-powerful in the creation of multiple worlds and works. Primary sources of the Nights and the coeval world of Islamic miniature painting abundant in marginalia are a starting point to investigate how marginalia give meaning to the whole. 1001 works allow me to explore various research strategies (eg. painting, weaving, 16mm film).Since the 18th century there has been a great European tradition of illustrating the 1001 Nights; the original C8th Arabic manuscript translations are my source. Scholars have worked on the Nights (Irwin, Ouyang, Warner); European Medieval marginalia (Camille, Grafton); a painting's frames and the parergon (Derrida, Duro). 'The Parergon and the Gutter' show (David Risley Gallery) compared Derrida's parergon to the gaps in comics and Anja Lutz, Babak Golkar and Pierre Alechinsky have used marginalia in artworks. My research uses a unique interdisciplinary approach to the Nights to investigate marginalia. The older traditions match the illustrations faithfully to their stories; I will use the 1001 texts as structural bases to make artworks.My research aims to show why the marginal is as important as the 'centre'. It aims to make important inroads into the unexplored field of Islamic manuscript marginalia and uncover why certain elements exist in the margins and not in the main image. There has been a growing interest in miniatures (eg. Hodgkin, Sikander). The relationship between the main image and marginalia in Islamic miniature painting is a rich, unexplored area in scholarship; my opportunity to make an original contributino to knowledge. By analysing the relationship between the various tales and the frame tale, plus that of the Nights' marginal figures (including slaves, different races and women) and the main figures, I will investigate why one of the world's most famous frame tales was told by a woman. More broadly I aim to contribute to an awareness of how Europe has also been shaped by non-European influences to help change perceptions of non-Western cultures.Making parerga (auxiliary works) illuminates the main works in a new light. My methodology is to use the frame tale and motifs of the Nights as a starting point to generate 1001 artworks. These can be artworks within artworks, like the Nights' tales within tales, and can comprise extensions or margins to a set of artworks, in line with the project aim of recasting the margin to be of equal importance to the main. I will identify narrative motifs in the Nights using literary mapping, examining the function of recurring tropes (eg. female slave rescues master from bankruptcy) which can be explored in the same artwork. I will use Medieval marginalia study techniques to study marginalia in Islamic miniatures, look at historical sources of marginal figures in the Nights adn draw on research into the relation between word and image.As an artist with Oriental roots I will make works based on an Orientalist work with Oriental roots (today's 1001 Nights). I curate and participate in a cycle of annual group exhibitions called 'Carpet Pages' involving international artists which will last 10-12 years. I aim to produce a book of the 1001 works.Supervisors: Prof Sharon Morris (Slade, primary), Dr Sophie Page (UCL History).