GOVERNMENT OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Speech by Minister Barbara Perry MP
Opening of The Arts of Islam exhibition
Friday, 22 June 2007

It's a great honour to be here, not only as a representative of the NSW Government, but as a supporter of the arts and friend of this great gallery.

I'm also proud to be here as the Minister for Western Sydney and Member for Auburn representing some of Australia's largest Islamic communities. It's no secret those communities have been under immense pressure over the past decade.

For many in the community, their views on Islam are seen through the prism of international news and dramatic television images. These are the only stories some know.

But these breathtakingly beautiful objects tell a completely different story. The story of Islam as not only a religion, but as the well-spring of a profound and sophisticated culture, and a culture that is rich, diverse and compelling.

In this post-September 11 and post-Bali era, every Australian of Islamic background should come and see this exhibition. They should come and be reminded that they are the inheritors and descendants of a great civilisation, just like those who share the Christian tradition revel in the glories of European cathedrals, stained glass and music.

To visit this exhibition is to build civility because you cannot come away from it other than moved to think well of those who created it, and how far away they must have been from the images we see on our television every day.

So this exhibition is an invitation for our fellow Australians of the Muslim faith to celebrate with a sense of pride - a sense that they belong to a long, proud history of culture and learning.

But this exhibition is, of course, not just directed at those of Islamic heritage. It is an invitation for engagement between civilisations. An engagement based on mutual respect. An engagement written in the humane and unifying language of art. It is - above all other things - simply beautiful.

And while art may educate, provoke, inform and amuse, in the end - at least to this suburban mother of five - it must be beautiful. And the Nasser D Khalili collection is not just beautiful but exquisite.

It is not only the world's most outstanding private collection of Islamic art, it is an outstanding collection of art - full stop, no adjective.

This is human art at its best, from times and places where leaders and ordinary individuals found the time and courage to put brush to paper, and carving tools to marble, to express in created things the divine spark that burns deep in the human soul.

Please reflect on this eloquent meeting of civilisations, this remarkable artistic advent to our city - "The Arts of Islam" - which NSW is privileged to host and which I am deeply honoured to open.

Thank you.