On a series of September Saturdays, the Flex Studio at Rice University’s Moody Center for the Arts buzzed with creative energy. Inside, students gathered around canvases and foam boards, their brushes sweeping across surfaces as artist Ruhee Maknojia moved between them, offering guidance and inspiration. These weekly workshops were not just about painting; they were an immersive collaboration. Under Maknojia’s direction, students worked side by side to bring a large-scale mural to life — an interactive installation that would soon fill the 40-foot-long Moody Project Wall with vibrant patterns and the timeless tale of Scheherazade.
The mural titled “Scheherazade Meets the Television” is Maknojia’s reinterpretation of “One Thousand and One Nights,” an iconic collection of folk tales from Central and South Asia and the Middle East. In her rendition, Houston native Maknojia reimagines the story’s heroine, Scheherazade, in a contemporary context where the tales she spins each night are now inspired by television screens. The mural transforms elements of the traditional narrative with a modern twist, reflecting our current relationship with new media and the way we consume stories.
“I’ve seen work by artists I really love showcased on the Project Wall,” said Maknojia, expressing how excited she was when Moody curator Frauke Josenhans approached her about creating an installation. “Sometimes it comes off as though the artist is doing everything, but there’s a whole team involved — from the curators to the students to the staff — and everyone is bringing input that allows for this project to come together.”
The Moody Project Wall is more than a platform for artists to display their work. Launched in 2021, the initiative encourages collaboration between local artists and Rice students, providing an opportunity for both parties to learn and create together. For “Scheherazade Meets the Television,” students such as Tessa Domsky, a Rice senior with a double major in visual and dramatic arts and art history, took a lead role in coordinating the student engagement as part of her curatorial internship at the Moody.
“It was super fun,” Domsky said. “I loved meeting all the students and working alongside Ruhee in the workshops.”
Each student contributed their own unique voice to the project, designing and painting 2 foot-by-2 foot panels with patterns that held personal meaning.
“Everybody wears patterns on their clothing,” Maknojia said. “Even when we wear solid colors, there’s texture to it. Patterns speak to different people in different ways.”
These individual creations were then incorporated into the final mural, cut into foam shapes that became an integral part of the artwork. The resulting mural is a visual and interactive spectacle. Light panels built into the mural respond to sound, illuminating whenever someone walks by.
“There are all these layers placed into this project to express this idea that we’re all carrying stories with us,” Maknojia said. “Our format of narrating stories and entertaining ourselves has changed. From oral traditions to Netflix, the way stories are told may evolve, but their ability to connect us remains.”
Maknojia, who has a background in Middle Eastern studies, carefully crafted the mural’s intricate patterns to evoke the cultural and historical significance of fabrics and storytelling. The visual effect of figures from the traditional tale climb up the wall, while windows and doors morph into television screens, all of it speaking to the mural’s central theme: the evolution of how we narrate and share stories from oral traditions to digital media.
“I had seen Ruhee’s work in other institutions around town, and I was really taken by her intricate and colorful compositions,” Josenhans said. “She incorporates figures and patterns that draw from different sources such as ancient mythologies and fables, but then she gives them a contemporary twist.”
Josenhans added that she was confident Maknojia would rise to the challenge of working on such a large scale.
“She’s a great visual storyteller,” Josenhans said. “I knew she would come up with something that not only occupied the wall but would also engage the students and inspire them throughout the process.”
“A lot of students at Rice have no real idea what being a professional artist is like,” Domsky said. “I think a lot of people who attended the workshops got to see that there are viable careers in the arts.”
Students from diverse disciplines participated, including architecture students, which Domsky found especially exciting.
“It was really nice having this cross-discipline collaboration and seeing the connections being made,” Domsky said. “It was helpful for students across different years and departments to talk to each other and see how art and architecture intersect.”
For Rice students and the broader Houston community, the Moody Project Wall continues to be a space of artistic innovation, where the collaboration between students and artists like Maknojia brings unique and thoughtful projects to life.
“Ruhee was the perfect candidate for the Moody Project Wall,” Josenhans said. “She understood the space, the scale and the significance of working with students. The result is something both beautiful and interactive, a mural that draws people in and engages them with both its visuals and its story.”
Learn more about the Moody Project Wall here.