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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...
A stream in fragments
There is a fragment.
And another.
A thread loosed from time, unraveling not toward conclusion,
but toward a trembling question.
You lean in.
Through the lens—ah, that quiet circle of glass—
you do not see what you expect.
No clarity, no certainty.
Only a soft murmur,
a hum that rises where vision slips and boundaries blur.
The object blurs.
You blur.
Something gives.
And there, where the pattern breaks—
where the weft has vanished into war, or time, or silence—
you find white.
A white still, waiting,
a white that holds its breath.
You pause, as if to hear the answer in the hush between two breaths.
Why not a shadow?
Why this field, this absence shaped by intention,
this so-called neutrality that claims no history—
yet floats atop so many?
Through the lens, white is not pure.
It is dense.
It is layered with centuries.
It is the sheet draped over something unspeakable.
It is the silence in a room after something breaks.
It is the memory we pretend not to carry.
You try to see through it,
but the view resists.
The white obscures.
Gently, like fog wrapping a hillside.
asking
What is being kept from view?
Or rather—what has been rendered invisible
by the illusion of transparency?
You move your gaze. The lens moves with you.
Shapes drift. Focus slips.
And still the question remains.
Not demanding, not sharp—
only steady, patient.
The white sits where threads once were.
Where color lived.
Where hands worked.
It marks the loss, yes,
but also, perhaps, protects it.
Preserves the wound from being stitched too neatly.
What if this is not a gap?
What if it is a space held open—
a pause in the sentence,
a breath drawn before the next thought arrives?
And the carpet, the fragment, the journey—
it is all still speaking.
Even in pieces.
Especially in pieces.
So you linger.
Not to solve, not to mend,
but to wonder.
And in this wondering,
a different kind of seeing begins.
Not the kind that dominates or collects,
but the kind that listens.
Listens to the whiteness that is not blank,
to the absence that is not empty,
to the fragment that does not need to be whole
in order to be alive.
Hi everyone, I’m super excited to share the journey of replicating fragment #36 in glass! The fragment is part of a 3-year long project coordinated by CulturalxCollabs, DHL, Rugstar and FMIK e.V.. Here’s a little welcome of the beautiful fragment at our front door and on the marver in the hot-shop.
Here’s what I plan to do:
I made two copies of the patterns on the fragment, which I will trace using a light board. The lines will serve as a template for the @bullseyeglass powers and frits I’ll use to make “wafers”.
The wafers are small, flat fused pieces of colour that when assembled on the base glass should recall the original pattern. Should - let’s see - I’m not an artist but I know the principles of the technique!
...so for the base of the carpet, it’s going to be French Vanilla. The photocopy I made shrank the pattern so making the wafer will need a little effort to make the pattern to scale.
I love the edge of the glass and think I might keep it organic rather than cutting it straight.
Instead of adding the extra step of rendering the patterns as a wafer, I decided to put the powders and frits directly on the base glass. I’m using colours that we already have in the studio so it won’t exactly be true to the original carpet and to be honest I’m not sure what each colour looks like when it’s melted! This is actually quite fun! I did add Egyptian Blue, which is one of my favorite colours. Let’s see!
I only did one side of the carpet so far and am fusing together the other two pieces of the base. It’s going to melt at 780 degrees Celsius!
Firing worked perfectly and now for the larger patterned area!
I do love the bright colours and I’m thinking of putting a layer of transparent Frits on the base glass to give it some texture.
...the carpet is ready for its last firing! Can’t wait to see the final results
It was so much fun to make the carpet in glass. I used what we had in the studio, so the colors are not exactly true to the original, but I think it's always a nice option to interpret the piece. The process I used was glass fusing, which is taking layers of glass and melting them together. The powders and frits I used created a wonderful texture, too. I used a low-ish temperature to fire the glass - 780 degrees Celcius, so that the frits, in particular, would stay rough.
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...
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.
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.
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?