Diaa Lagan is multidisciplinary artist, and PhD candidate in a joint program between Department of Media Studies, Maynooth university, and IADT, funded by Elevate program (IADT), Diaa's practice is known for metaphorical narratives rooted in mythology and history. Alongside these traditional themes, Lagan also engages with contemporary socio-political issues, making his work relevant and thought-provoking in today's global context. Lagan's research practice is deeply attuned to the present moment, reflecting the ongoing upheaval of liquid modernity, and the resulting unrest on a global scale. Diaa current interest in exploring foreign artefacts in Western museums, questioning their representation, Identity and acquisition within colonial and exploitative contexts.

This presentation addresses the decolonisation of Western Museum collections by exploring a practice-led response to Suwar al-Aqalim (CBL Ar 3007) by al-Istakhri, held in the Chester Beatty collection. Through artistic research rooted in critical cartography, the project interrogates the misrepresentation and marginalisation of pre-modern Islamicate knowledge systems within museum contexts. Rather than treating the manuscript as a static artefact, the research reactivates its epistemic and aesthetic functions, foregrounding its relational spatiality, schematic abstraction, and poetic cosmography.

The project culminated in a site-responsive exhibition featuring large-scale visual works that reinterpret al-Istakhri’s unique cartographic logic. These works resist Eurocentric mapping conventions by embracing sacred geography, symbolic space, and non-linear perspective, drawing on Islamic visual traditions such as miniatures and arabesque composition. By weaving together textual fragments and spatial iconography, the artworks challenge dominant narratives that have historically reduced West Asian heritage to decontextualised artefacts.

This case study situates artistic practice as a critical intervention into museum discourse, offering alternative ways of engaging with Islamicate artefacts beyond colonial museological frameworks. It contributes to broader conversations on the revaluation of African and Asian knowledge systems, and advocates for representational justice through creative, immersive, and culturally situated methodologies.