Lost edens, hoped for utopias. The idea that a better place exists haunts the human imagination.

Paul Basu, Professor of Anthropology and Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, is curating the inaugural exhibition at the White Box gallery, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.

On Paradise: Between Hope and Memory is a major exhibition featuring the work of the Oxford-based artist Saad Qureshi, exploring humanity’s enduring fascination with paradise – lost, longed for, or yet to come.

The exhibition brings together large-scale sculptural works, intimate ‘mindscapes’ and a remarkable 9-metre long paper tapestry, which interweaves images of Paradise from different religious traditions. The immersive exhibition is animated by a specially-commissioned soundscape from the sound artist Tim Cowie, and incorporates a film co-directed by Christopher Thomas Allen and Paul Basu providing insight into Qureshi’s artistic process and motivations.

In conversation with Qureshi’s work, is a series of panels in which Oxford academics discuss concepts of paradise in different cultural and religious contexts, from the etymological origins of the word in Persia, meaning an enclosed garden, through to the Christian narrative of the Fall and expulsion from Paradise. Others discuss the relationship between Paradise and Utopia, question the assumed universalism of the concept of a ‘heavenly place’ on earth, and explore encounters with more everyday ‘paradises’. 

To accompany the main exhibition at the Schwarzman Cente, Qureshi has created a series of gallery interventions in each of the University’s museums: the Ashmolean Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum, the Museum of Natural History and the History of Science Museum. Follow the ‘On Paradise Trail’ to see all of the works.

The exhibition forms part of Utopia Now! a season of events that invites audiences to reflect on the personal, cultural, and collective visions that sustain hope and inspire action.