GAINESVILLE, FL.- The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art presents A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal, through March 15, 2005. A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal explores the arts and culture of Islamic West Africa through a dynamic and influential movement in Senegal known as the Mouride Way, based on the teachings of the Sufi saint Sheikh Amadou Bamba. The exhibition includes glass paintings, calligraphic healing verses, murals and signs, textiles and paintings by internationally recognized contemporary artists. The installation also uses images, objects and sounds in reconstructions of a Sufi devotional sanctum, a vendor kiosk and other popular culture sites from the streets of Dakar. These offer an appreciation of Islamic philosophy and practice through the arts, celebrate the power of images in the everyday lives of Senegalese people and demonstrate how these images are reshaping urban environments to express the vitality of contemporary African life.

A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal was organized and produced by the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and curated by Dr. Mary Nooter Roberts and Dr. Allen F. Roberts in collaboration with Senegalese community leaders and artists in both Dakar and Los Angeles. It was made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, promoting excellence in the humanities. Additional support was provided by the UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center. The exhibition is made possible locally by Northern Trust Bank.