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This fragment is part of the "CulturalxCollabs - Weaving the Future" carpet.
Through the fragment we trace the journey of the fragment owners and their collabs as they explore, experiment and creatively advance socially relevant themes. Here is the fragment as we are sending it on this three and a half-year journey.
Follow this story to observe the transformations the fragment undergoes over the course of these years...
...AND ON WE GO...
...with Pamela Swanborough
We travel our own paths. We cross, or merge, or overlap. We mend or stifle, we chose or are chosen; rejected, invaded, embraced, enhanced.
Why aren’t you like me?...
…well, why should you be? Why aren’t I like you?
We all come from the same first energy wave, and we all move with the tide into darkness. Yet today I am cold, well-nourished, sad, while you are warm, thirsty, curious. Tomorrow I may be whole, and you may be broken; or perhaps I will fall, and you will rise replenished.
Or we might weave our separate paths together, join along our ragged selvedges to find the common goal, define the common obstacle.
Fragment #11 speaks to me of migration.
Humans migrate, have migrated, will do so until the end. With the traveller come the tales, the crafts and the carpets; the ideas of perfection, safety, love, comfort.
The warrior brings an invasion that destroys, erodes and erases what was before, replaces the richness of the past with… what: fear, erasure? The refugee: hope and opportunity, or terror and trauma; maybe all these together.
And then: those who are invaded, who are forced to the mantle of the ones who welcomed, or the free folk who became victim; those who arrived before, who built first, wave on wave pushed into the hinterlands of their world.
Fragment #11 has moved through changes in time and space, language and status, and carries a similar story; Fragment #11 is displaced, damaged, displaced again, reformed…
Hold fragment #11 out at heart-level, your arms spread to stretch the fabric out flat before you; open your chest and breath. Let your shoulders relax and drop; loosen the tension in your neck, your jaw.
Hold it this way.
The coloured catenary curves—Fangs? Waves? Butcher’s marks or a knife’s edge? —are all that remains of the past, jagged and in retreat against a devouring Nothing that took the story, took the words and imagery and reduced them to soot. The edge of culture, narrowly protected by a crushing fold from the ravages of disaster.
Now reverse it.
See a desert where colour and life, deliberate conscious acts, are creeping in from the edges across a sandy waste. The emptiness of the unknown destination is slowly being filled with thoughts, intentions, traditions retained and renewed through a new experience.
The wave forms, the focus on the terminus between new and old… I took fragment #11 to the sea shore, liminal space on the brim of my country, still ill-at-ease with our past.
We all hope for the best.
We just need to find agreement on what ‘the best’ looks like. Quickly and thoughtfully.
The journey begins...
...with Martina Kopp from Mitsune
Mitsune is an all-female shamisen trio based in Berlin, with members from Japan, Australia, and Germany. We met each other through a shared passion for the instrument they specialise in, the Tsugaru shamisen, a traditional Japanese 3-stringed instrument once favoured by blind folk and travelling musicians of olden Japan. Mitsune performs a vibrant mix of traditional Japanese folksongs, virtuosic modern repertoire, and original compositions with blues, rock, cinematic and global music influences. Our performances are engaging and joyful, spiced with vocals, bamboo flute and percussion atop the sounds of the shamisen.
Since forming in 2018, we have performed at numerous festivals, cultural events and concerts across Europe. We released their debut album in 2018, which Songlines Magazines praised as "consistently excellent. If you need a contemporary introduction to the world of Tsugaru shamisen, this is it." Our second album Hazama was released in 2022, praised in Songlines and Rolling Stone, and entering the Transglobal World Music Chart at #10.
Three cultures coming together in harmony
The name Mitsune translates from Japanese as "a sweet sound", but is also a play on the word "mitsu", which indicates three of something – the three strings of a shamisen, three women, three cultures coming together in harmony.
Front and Back
About the Project
The Museum for Islamic Art's project, #CulturalxCollabs - Weaving the future, celebrates the transformative power of cultural exchange and the shared threads that unite us all. All the things we love, have loved and will ever love come from cultural exchange, migration and diversity, or as we like to call it #CulturalxCollabs.
100 carpet fragments, cut from a replica of the iconic dragon carpet, will travel the world (delivered by DHL). The fragments will ignite #CulturalxCollabs with co-creators, inspiring human ingenuity, fostering community and ultimately demonstrating how cultural exchange enriches all our lives.
Follow #CulturalxCollabs on Instagram as the project unfolds...
...or learn more here
Weaving the Future
Join us on a journey with 100 carpet fragments as they travel around the world for three and a half years, finding temporary homes while bridging cultural boundaries, fostering worldwide community united by the power of human stories.
Fragment Journeys
100 carpet fragments part of the "CulturalxCollabs - Weaving the Future" project. Follow their journeys through the ever changing owners' over three and a half years.
Where is the Dragon?
The star of the "CulturalxCollabs - Weaving the Future" project is a so-called Caucasian dragon carpet from the 17th century. A dragon carpet - all well and good - but: where is the dragon?
