The Aga Khan Museum and the Fondazione Imago Mundi announce the launch of a new partnership, dedicated to fostering dialogue and understanding between cultures and international communities.

The partnership begins with a jointly-created exhibition, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, which channels the experiences of artists who are first, second, and third-generation immigrants – a growing body of people raised in a culture other than their parents’ – in a series of diverse works exploring cross-cultural artistic realities.

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From features new works by 15 artists, representing 25 different countries, and will open at Imago Mundi’s Gallerie delle Prigioni in Treviso, Italy, on 27 November 2019, before travelling to the Aga Khan Museum in March 2020, and then to venues across Canada, the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

In response to one of today’s most pressing global issues, this project focuses on the impact of migration on artistic identity and expression. The artists selected address the issues they face as people who live between cultures and celebrate the abundance of cultural experience they are able to channel in their art.

Aligned in their belief in art as a source of knowledge and a key to interpreting the world, the Aga Khan Museum and the Fondazione Imago Mundi have come together for this project with a shared goal of furthering understanding, respect, and tolerance among the world’s cultures.

“Our ambition as a Museum is to connect cultures through art,” says Henry Kim, the Aga Khan Museum’s Director and CEO, “and this exhibition reinforces our belief that culture is fluid and that it is possible to live free from nationalism – a perspective on the world that comes at a critical time.”

“Imago Mundi is a cultural, democratic, and global project that looks to the new frontiers of art in the name of coexistence of expressive diversity,” says Luciano Benetton, Chairman of Fondazione Imago Mundi. “This collaboration is a new step to enlarge our artistic community. We see it as a further opportunity to foster the promotion, research and knowledge of artistic realities from all over the world and, above all, dialogue between different cultures.”