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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 Mo Baala
Hello everyone, my name is Mo Baala.
When the package arrived, I looked at it without opening it, I wondered how to confront such complex emotions without becoming merely illustrative. I asked myself: "What if I create an installation that serves as a poetic interpretation of this carpet - and the history attached to it - without ever opening the package?"
Ultimately, I will open it, but I will do so with my eyes closed. I will sign the back of the carpet because I refuse to look at it. Instead, my goal is to create an independent installation. By juxtaposing this new work with the unopened or unseen carpet, I invite the audience to navigate the space between them.
Does this make sense? Perhaps not. But war does not make sense either. Existence rarely makes sense, yet it persists. People continue with their lives, and that act of moving forward is itself a way of creating meaning out of the meaningless.
Being the Being, Installation, 2026 | Mo Baala x CulturalxCollabs
For this installation, I used *semella*—the rubber material used for shoe soles to protect our feet. While we traditionally interact with a carpet on a horizontal plane, I wanted to position the *semella* vertically. It represents protection for our feet—the very feet we need to walk toward tomorrow.
The carpet is a foundational element of my upbringing, woven deeply into my collective memory and imagination. It brought to mind the myth of Sinbad flying on a magic carpet—rising above the heavy, horizontal realities of the world. It is the desire to escape our worldly complexities, even when escape feels impossible.
Through these physical forms, I wanted to communicate the sheer difficulty of rising above our struggles. Life is rarely straight; it is organic rather than geometric, demanding constant adaptation. The shapes I have created embody this complexity. They are objects that have a right to exist, to be seen, to be hung, and to provoke thought. They are an act of resistance.
Much like the beauty of carpets woven in the darkest of times, these forms resist, and through that resistance, they exist.
Photography Mo Baaala studio, 2026
The journey begins...
...with Lucia Kempkes
"Carpet Weaving as a Drawing Practice" was a seminar I taught in the winter semester of 2024/25 at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. The carpet fragment was part of the seminar as input on the tradition of carpet weaving, its technique, and aesthetics. The students' artistic results are outstanding, individual, and demonstrate the versatility of the possible interpretations of weaving and carpet weaving as an artistic practice.
Final Presentation and Exhibition
The completed works were presented in an exhibition, either hanging freely, on the wall, or within a custom-built scaffold structure.
The Battle Within
by Sandra Waldfrost
Why is there straw here? / The Great Temptation
by Ferdinand Golz
Arable land and fields
by Rosalie Radke
Completely and Independently
by Sahrah Feyerabend
Untitled
by Jacob Lepp
Untitled
by Lillian Senfft von Pilsach
Tell the floor
by Romi Kroener
Keyhole
by Ayla Aoki
The future is clear. It's going to fall apart.
by Agathe Salva
3450min
by Tine Metka
How are you doing? [Unsolicited Nudes pt.2]
by Ben Thiele
Random-Access Memory
by Annekathrin Stroekel
Bergstrasse 15
by Emilia Justen
Counting sheep
by Amelie Brauer
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.
Creating a carpet
A 17th-century Caucasian carpet, burned by an incendiary bomb during the Second World War, serves as the model for a replica, woven in 2022 by a family in Rajasthan, India. Over 2.3 million knots later, it is being sent out into the world in 100 fragments. This is the story of how it came to be.
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?
