Fragment No. 12

But that one year of voluntary social service goes by faster than you think.

With the change of the volunteer, the carpet fragment passed into new hands. It is now being handed over to Alina Immken, volunteer at the Museum for Islamic Art 2024–2025.

Since the voluntary year is primarily about gaining practical work experience, you can shape the tasks you take on according to your own interests.

I was mainly involved in educational work and created teaching materials for the museum. We transformed these drawings into team tote bags for our school partnership. Of course, I also had to design a tote bag featuring my carpet fragment as the motif!

Even after thousands of years, our clay tablets still haven’t had enough of our attention—still today, they constantly demand our care.

Working with the historical objects in our collection is part of my tasks as a volunteer, and it is, of course, my absolute favorite. While handling these testimonies of the earliest civilizations, I measure and photograph them so that they can later be fully recorded in our foundation’s documentation system. To make sure I don’t photograph anything upside down, I first received an introduction to cuneiform from our Assyriologist.

It is probably precisely these moments—when I hold a connection to a person who lived 4,000 years ago in my hands—that will stay with me forever.

The idea of bringing the fragment was a rather spontaneaus one, which is why I spent a whole day in anxiety about its safe arrival. And eventually it did come. After all, our educational facility isn't closed off in some uninhabitated region of Brandenburg but only a short train fare off from Berlin. That is, I took the train, whereas the fragment was chauffered around in a post car. It is way to young to take the train all alone anyway. Upon the arrival of the DHL package I took the oppurtunity of tea time to reveal the twelfth fragment to the eyes of the world and myself. And even though it sparked common interest, my own excitement upon the colours and handicraft skills was unsurmountable.

The next day the creative workshops began. In the workshop Upcycling we dedicated our time to working with different materials - from old bicycle inner tubes to wool - and talked about sustainable living practices during work. At first I tried my luck with a bit of weaving. However, my crude technique could not in the least be compared to the fine knots of my accompanying fragment, who was looking at me rather disapprovingly. So I spent my remaining time with stitching. I couldn't immediatly decide on a motive but instead of the rather obvious first impulse of flowers (Florals in spring? Groundbreaking.) I took inspirtation from another near source. Upon seeing, that the embroidery was supposed to resemble the carpet's pattern, the fragment thoroughly lightened up. The most striking thing I learnt through the workshop was, how long embroidery takes to finish. During a great spurt of motivation I set a myself a somewhat overexaggerated goal and thought the fragment motive to be easily completed at home. This was an error, but not a reason for giving up.