A visual study, exploration and interpretation of Heaven and Hell (a.k.a Jannah and Jahannam) concepts in Islam, inspired by the 14th-16th Century Persian Miniatures.

7 Levels of Heaven and Hell

The number 7 is quite important in many different areas and for this project we decided to examine this subject from a cultural point of view. During our initial research we found out that there are 7 levels of Hell and Heaven in Islam and we thought that our main inspiration for this project could be Persian miniatures which also rarely visualises these concepts. We collected a lot of miniature examples produced between 13th and 16th centuries and we started to see a pattern. All the miniatures we collected had similar elements in them which you can repeatedly see in almost all of them. With the help of these elements, we started to work on our interpretation of Persian miniatures using a completely different technique. Our aim was to represent the art of miniature using modern tools such as 3D software and adding interactions turning this art form into an experience which invites the audience to participate.