Faculty of Islamic Arts was founded in 2005 and it’s been one of the five faculties of Tabriz Art University. From the beginning, education and research activities of the faculty have been designed to approach the following aims:
- Promoting the students’ practical abilities to make Islamic arts more functional and also trying for entrepreneurship
- Studying the current situation and contemporary challenges in arts of Islamic countries
Faculty of Islamic Arts is the only dedicated department in the domain of Islamic arts all through Iran and maybe all over the Middle East. Now there are about 400 students (both undergraduates and graduates) in the Faculty.
Undergraduate and Graduate Studies (B.A & M.A)
These students are admitted through the Entrance Exam and will be directed into five fields Miniature, Pottery, Glasswork, Woodwork and Metalwork (Table 1). Besides getting theoretical and research abilities, all the students can experience lots of specialized workshops depending on their chosen fields. Not only has the faculty employed the best traditional and academic masters simultaneously, it also provides different specific visits in order to acquaint the students with professional and traditional workshops. In such fields the faculty works as an art polytechnic.
Academic programs and endeavors are designed in a way that they can guarantee the graduates’ future job possibilities and will facilitate the path of their future artworks. Since three years ago the academic politics have been based on “Artwork-Centered Training”. The goal of such programs is upgrading the students’ practical abilities in the domains of theorization, designing and production of crafts which are based on Islamic traditional attitudes. Thus, the students of this faculty are expected to present their theoretical studies and researches in the forms of artworks. In other words while presenting their dissertations, it’s necessary for them to explain about the process of idea formation, designing steps and performance methods.
Ph.D:
This faculty is the only department in Iran which administers the Ph.D program in Islamic Art. The Ph.D studies in this department are limited to eight domains, four of which are the same ones as B.A and M.A levels: Miniature, pottery, metal works and wood works. In addition the faculty also admits the Ph.D students in four other domains which are Pictorial Arts in Islamic world, Islamic Calligraphy, Aesthetics of Islamic Art and History of Islamic Art. Table 2 shows the syllabus of each orientation.