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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...
The journey begins...
...WITH Fattima Naufil Naseer
As a textile designer, academic and artist, the idea of culture, heritage and identity is one I keep coming back to. Understanding why we create and how we create to reflect ideas of ourselves and the world around is a powerful concept.
Living in Vienna, as a Pakistani student/practitioner is a journey that is a lot about building upon what is around me and how much of my heritage and identity is present or not in what I build.
For me, collaging as a medium is so simple yet powerful, finding these images of carpets in various catalogues and building patterns on other patterns to symbolize a narrative of various regions speaks to a language of creation. The idea that everything we have or see is built upon something whether small, big, renewed or destroyed is so powerful and is a testament to our ability as humans to create out of chaos or order. The carpet in particular is such a powerful symbol of human creation, what starts as a thread creates an entire story and the human bond of time and creation is so perfectly archived in the carpet.
In some way, the collage was a symbolic framework of building upon, taking time, creating patterns disrupting them even- eventually the collage reached up to 5 feet and would have kept going on. Culture and heritage are similar we constantly build upon what we have, using various places as influence or a body of work that fits into the pattern or our existence/aesthetic. Carpets can teach us a lot of how we understand ourselves and society in relation to the creative process.
Fragment 31/100 became the starting point of a new carpet collage narrative.
The idea of building a tactile story only with carpet images was challenging but interesting. The process involved, scouring through carpet catalogues and collaging narratives out of carpet images from regions of Iran, Central Asia and China. The collage kept building on, eventually reaching 5 feet. Each pattern is representational of a regional style, story or historical significance.
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
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.
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.
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?
