The Aga Khan Museum is extremely young. Founded in 2014, the museum is already globally renowned for its stellar programming, international reach, and incredible collection. I sat down with Tazim Hirji, Development Officer for the Aga Khan Museum’s Patrons’ Circle, to talk about how this truly global museum serves patrons around the world.
 |
| Exterior front of the Aga Khan Museum. Source. |
What is the Aga Khan Museum’s mission?
It’s bringing cultures together to work together, share knowledge, and grow that knowledge. It’s not a matter of who you are, where you’re from. [Our] mission is to foster a sense of understanding and appreciation. [The museum is] a place where people can come and basically break their misconceptions and perceptions of who Muslims are. When you enter our permanent collection and you realize that no matter who you are, you have a connection to [Muslim culture]. We try to ensure that the focus of [the museum] is art from Muslim civilizations, but we look at contemporary artists, we look at exhibitions that complement what we’re here to do. We have a beautiful auditorium, and our programming is so vast, both our education and our performing arts programming, our exhibitions—we’re only four years old and I believe we’ve have 15-20 contemporary exhibitions that we’ve put up.
You’re busy here.
We’re very busy. We’re unique in the sense that our performing arts program is connected to our special exhibitions and our permanent collection. Our themes are very intertwined. Our lectures series, our workshops, all of that. We do programming out in the park. We try to bring communities together.
 |
| The reflecting pool in front of the Aga Khan Museum. Source. |
Your work here is primarily with the Patrons’ Circle, which has seven levels. How are those levels decided upon? How did you make those distinctions?
When we first opened our team benchmarked against other museums locally as well as internationally. We looked at which levels of engagement we offered and what we could offer based on the programming we had here at the museum. When we opened we grew our membership, and over time we did a lot of informal questioning, getting feedback from our patrons. We are a global museum, we have programming we do outside of Toronto and supporters outside of Toronto. We have supporters across Canada, the US, Dubai, Pakistan, the UK, East Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, we have a Director’s Circle in South Africa. We’re truly a global museum. With supporters around the world we also put on programming in those cities. We’ve been talking to a lot of our supporters locally and globally, and getting a feel of, “Are there making use of our benefits here, someone living all the way in Dubai? If someone gets to an event once a year is that good enough, or if someone can’t come here can they make use of their admission passes?” So yes we looked at what other museums are doing, but we came to realize very quickly that we are truly a museum like no other. Our offerings have to be very unique. Our benefits have to be unique as well.
 |
| Part of the Aga Khan Museum's permanent collection, featuring a map depicting the spread of Islam across the world. Source. |
That is a really interesting challenge. I cannot think of any other museum doing this. How does foreign patron membership grow?
Oftentimes it’s visitors that walk in the door. I try to make my way down from my office so that I’m connecting with people here. Quite often I get supporters just by meeting them. [I’m] always talking to people, always sharing what we offer, and encouraging them to join and support. Our patrons are our biggest advocates and ambassadors. They go out and they say, “Hey, you need to come and join me,” and I think a lot of that happens because of the close connection I have with our supporters. I make sure they know who I am, my team does the same, we try to build a rapport with our supporters so that they gain trust in us and they have a positive experience and so that they want others to enjoy that too.
So what kind of events do you have for international supporters? If someone in Dubai wants to stay in touch, but they don’t want to come to Toronto so you have an event there, what would that event look like?
In all of our cities we have volunteer convenors who support us. We have monthly meetings with our convenors over the phone, and every year they come to Toronto for a workshop where we train them, equip them, and talk about programming events in their own cities. In collaboration with our convenors we seek out opportunities where we can engage. There are times when we take programming to them, we’ll send artists to the different cities. We just had a performance in London, England, Misaq-e-Ishq [The Covenant of Love]. Ali Sethi, who is a Pakistani, Sufi singer, and Dr. Ali Asani, who is a Professor from Harvard, put together this show where Professor Ali Asani talks about Rumi poetry and Sufi poetry, and Ali Sethi will sing it. We try and seek out local opportunities as well as sending programming out. With [the exhibition] The World of the Fatimids, for example, we did a VR exhibition. Dr. Ulrike Al-Khamis, who is our Director of Programming and Collections, [went] on a tour to the west coast of Canada as well as through the US, and she did a presentation on The World of the Fatimids. We had the attendees experience the exhibition through VR.
 |
| A portion of the Aga Khan Museum's permanent collection. Source. |
I’m always interested in how you go about targeting younger demographics. How do you communicate to young people that this is the Patrons’ Circle they should be investing in, rather than one at any other institution?
Globally we have a lot of young patrons. In Toronto itself we have a handful, and we’ve grown that quite considerably. I think the success of that has been first that we offer two levels for young patrons. We offer the single and the dual, [and] you can have anyone as your second card holder. That’s one aspect. The other thing is that our young patrons get the full benefits that our regular patrons get, which is not common in most institutions. Our young patrons get invitations to everything: our exhibition openings, our Patrons’ Lounge, Chai and Chats. They can be engaged along with everyone else. However, we do target the young patrons and provide programming that is more exciting for them. When we do our programming, our Programming Department makes sure we’re getting all the demographics in. For example, this season we have three comedians. In January we had Mo Amer, who has his own Netflix show. In April, we had Zahra Noorbakhsh, a female comedian. Then in June we had Azhar Usman, who we had last year and who had two-sold out shows. We’re trying to create more fun stuff. We try to ensure we connect with our young patrons on a personal level. It’s not just via emails, it’s picking up the phone and calling them and having a conversation.
 |
| Glass details inside the Aga Khan Museum. Source. |
What is the most exciting thing for you that has been achieved through donor relations, fundraising, and of the broad financial-ness here at the Aga Khan Museum since you joined.
I think the most exciting part for me is that 2018 was a wildly successful year. We had a total of 54 Patrons’ Circle events that we did in the year, globally. I, personally, attended 48 of them.
You must be so tired!
I love what I do! It’s energizing, not tiring. I believe in this museum. I see the fruits of it and it’s just amazing. We have some incredible people supporting the museum and we are so grateful for that. That’s really exciting. They feel confident in us, they trust us, and they believe in us and want to continue supporting philanthropically to our mission.
 |
| Autumn at the Aga Khan Museum & Ismaili Centre. Source. |
Check out these upcoming events and programs at the Aga Khan Museum: Moon Craters, Exoplanets, and Galactic Revolutions with Bettina Forget, Tabla Maestro Pandit Kumar Bose in Concert, Moon Mission with Bettina Forget. Check out their current exhibition, The Moon: A Voyage Through Time, here.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.