AIS at the IV Congreso Arte y Religiones of AICR

From 28 to 30 May 2025, the IV Congreso Arte y Religiones was held at the School of Arabic Studies in Granada, under the title “Los rostros de lo sensorial. Experiencias religiosas en las Artes” (“The Faces of the Sensory. Religious Experiences in the Arts”). Organised by the Asociación para la Investigación en Ciencias de las Religiones (AICR), the event brought together specialists, researchers and artists, inviting reflection on religious experience through corporality, the senses and symbolic forms.

The opening conference on Wednesday 28 May was delivered by Professor José Miguel Puerta Vílchez, a renowned Arabist and lecturer at the University of Granada, with the presentation “Dios es bello y ama la belleza: estética y espiritualidad en el islam” (“God is Beautiful and Loves Beauty: Aesthetics and Spirituality in Islam”). In his lecture, Prof. Puerta Vílchez explored the deep connection between aesthetics and spirituality in the Islamic tradition, highlighting how beauty manifests in various artistic and religious expressions.

On Thursday 29 May, the day began with Professor Mª Elena Díez Jorge, Chair of Art History at the same university, who presented “Lo que evocan y provocan los objetos: mundo sensible y cultura material” (“What Objects Evoke and Provoke: The Sensible World and Material Culture”). In her talk, Prof. Díez Jorge discussed how material objects, in their aesthetic and symbolic dimension, mediate religious and sensory experience, emphasising their role in building meaning and emotion in faith contexts.

On Friday 30 May, in the final day of the congress, the morning session opened with Professor José Antonio González Alcantud, Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Granada and a leading researcher in the field of cultural imagery. His conference, “Perspectiva pictórica y diferencias religiosas” (“Pictorial Perspective and Religious Differences”), offered a thought-provoking reflection on how the Western pictorial gaze has shaped ways of representing — and sometimes delimiting — the religious and the different. Through the analysis of artworks and visual discourses, Prof. González Alcantud examined the symbolic construction of religious otherness, inviting consideration of art as a field where aesthetics, identity and the perception of the other intersect.

The congress was organised into five thematic panels: “Rostros danzantes y sonoros” (“Dancing and Sounding Faces”), “Rostros de lo inmaterial” (“Faces of the Immaterial”), “Rostros de mujer” (“Women’s Faces”), “Rostros transformadores” (“Transformative Faces”), and “Rostros devocionales” (“Devotional Faces”). These sessions provided a space for interdisciplinary dialogue on topics such as dance, music, architecture, literature and other forms of artistic expression in relation to religious experiences.

In this context, the Aromas Itinerarium Salutis Association actively participated in the panel *“Rostros de lo inmaterial”*with the presentation “Museografías olfativas en Museos de Farmacia: la percepción de lo intangible en nuevas didácticas con enfoques intergeneracionales” (“Olfactory Museographies in Pharmacy Museums: Perceiving the Intangible in New Intergenerational Didactic Approaches”), delivered by María Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual, AIS Director, and Ester Alba Pagán, AIS President. The presentation addressed the use of scent as a museographic resource capable of triggering memories, emotions and learning in heritage contexts, focusing particularly on pharmacy museums as ideal spaces to explore the sensory and the intangible. With an intergenerational approach, the project highlighted the importance of connecting diverse audiences with heritage narratives through experiences appealing to the senses and strengthening the human dimension of the museum.

The use of scent in religious contexts has, since antiquity, been a privileged channel to express the sacred, awaken spiritual memory and establish links between the visible and the invisible. Incense, balms, ointments and essences have accompanied rituals, pilgrimages and liturgies across many traditions. In this sense, the contribution of Aromas Itinerarium Salutis not only offered an innovative perspective on sensory museography but was fully in line with the spirit of the congress, centred on the “faces of the sensory”. By reclaiming the value of smell as a gateway to the immaterial, the proposal naturally integrated into the interdisciplinary dialogue on art, religion and experience, reaffirming the potential of aroma as a symbolic and educational language in the cultural and spiritual sphere.

The congress concluded with a programme of parallel activities that enriched the participants’ sensory and cultural experience. In collaboration with the TaQa Association, visits were organised to the historic heart of the Albaicín, including its gardens and alleyways, as well as to the Abbey of Sacromonte, where the enigmatic legacy of the libros plúmbeos (lead books) was explored — a testimony to the complex interreligious relations in early modern Granada. In addition, a guided visit was offered to the art exhibition “El Zahir” at the Fundación Euroárabe, accompanied by the artist himself, EduArt Granada, who shared the symbolic and sensory keys of his work.

These activities extended the dialogue between art, spirituality and the senses beyond the academic sphere, in harmony with the congress’s aims and the integrative vision promoted by Aromas Itinerarium Salutis.