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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 Albandari Aljuaid
HISTORIC JEDDAH: THE GATE TO MAKKAH
As a Saudi textile designer with a deep interest in textile history, I have always been fascinated by how textiles travel through time and place, carrying traces of the people, cultures, and stories they encounter.
When I received the Fragment, I felt that its journey reflected this idea perfectly. And because Jeddah is my city, I chose Historic Jeddah as the starting point for my story with the fragment, a place shaped over centuries by the movement of people, encounters, and cultural exchange.
And so, our journey through Historic Jeddah began.
A travelling textile meets a city shaped by Hajj journeys over the centuries...
01- FOLLOWING THE HAJJ ROUTE
Historic Jeddah served for centuries as a gateway to Makkah for pilgrims arriving by sea. Since Jeddah became the port of Makkah in the seventh century, pilgrims from different regions passed through the city, bringing with them materials, traditions, patterns, and stories. These movements contributed to a place shaped by cultural exchange.
When Fragment #36 arrived, I felt a connection between its journey as a travelling textile and a place that had itself been shaped by movement and encounters over time.
I began at the Hajj Route, where a history of passage and exchange met a new journey for the fragment.
From there, I began placing it in different contexts, among materials, patterns, and objects carrying traces of other times and stories, exploring how a single textile could be seen differently through what surrounds it.
Material encounters across place and time...
02- THROUGH MATERIALS, PATTERNS & TIME
As Fragment #36 moved deeper into Historic Jeddah, its journey became less about where it travelled and more about what it encountered along the way.
Inside houses more than a century old, the fragment found itself surrounded by elements shaped and preserved over generations — patterns held in textiles, traces of use on wooden doors and old objects, and spices from the Souqs — all connected to Historic Jeddah’s long history of trade and cultural exchange.
Placed among them, the fragment became part of a new story - one where different histories, materials, and traditions meet across time.
One fragment, carrying its own history while encountering the histories of others.
AMONG SPICES & SOUQS
Spices, grains, and other goods have long been part of the trade and exchange that shaped Historic Jeddah, like textiles, carry stories of movement, culture, and exchange..
AMONG PATTERNS
The Caucasian Dragon Carpet motifs carried by Fragment #36 appeared alongside motifs from different periods and origins, each with a history of its own — brought together in one place centuries later.
AMONG OBJECTS
Fragment #36 beside traditional wooden doors, old objects, and crafted details, encountered objects and materials marked by time...
AMONG OBJECTS
Inspired by a 17th century Caucasian carpet, Fragment #36 appeared against a world map carrying the visual language of roughly the same period...
03- A TASTE OF CULTURAL EXCHANGE
Food, like textiles, can carry traces of culture, tradition, and exchange. For a little while, the fragment became part of another kind of cultural encounter — one shared through food.
ONE LAST MOMENT...
What I enjoyed most about this journey was how the fragment made me look at familiar things differently. I found myself noticing patterns I might have passed by before, comparing textures and materials, and thinking about the stories they carry.
Placing the fragment beside old doors, stone, textiles, and everyday objects made me realize that a material is not only defined by what it is, but also by what it meets.
With every new encounter, the fragment created a different connection bringing together materials, memories, and traces of time.
And with that, it was time for me to say goodbye to Fragment #36.
The journey continues...
...with Johanna Rogalla
A new Fragment of #36 is born: a textile fragment created using double weave and dobby weave, made from cotton, wool, paper yarn, effect yarn, and bouclé, measuring approximately 29 × 59 cm.
The woven fragment engages with notions of reconstruction—or rather, of deconstruction—once again a copied, mirrored iteration. It refers to the reinterpretation fabricated in India from an original piece rooted in the Caucasus region. The process of reconstructing again finds itself in another location far away from its origin. Again, an incomplete iteration: What appears as recovery is instead a reiteration: a copied, mirrored translation of a translation - between presence and absence - where structure and image diverge. The fragmented patterns and forms remain unknown to the viewer but also to the weaver herself. It carries traces of its multiple translations while withholding coherence. The double-layered weave conceals the patterns, blurring them within the fabric. In this sense, the fragment does not reconstruct the original, but exposes the impossibility of reconstruction itself. What remains is a murmur, a sense of what might be, but also plenty of room for what has vanished, and for what may yet come.
...AND ON WE GO...
...with Dominik Cosentino
Through the Lens, the White Begins to Speak
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.
The Journey Begins...
...with Nadania Idriss from Berlin Glass Works
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.
The Process
The process I plan to use is called glass fusing.
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!
I’m using glass that we already have in the studio...
...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.
What do you think?
There was a slight change of plans:
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!
The results of first firing are in:
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.
And just like that...
...the carpet is ready for its last firing! Can’t wait to see the final results
It's finished!
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.
And now the carpet Fragment 36 will be off to California, where the amazing designer Cedric Mitchell will take a turn at interpreting it!
CulturalxCollabs Team meets Nadania!
Nadania walks us through her glass fragment making process and her inspiration behind the idea!
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?
