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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 Berit Opelt
Fragment #51 Edition Munich/Germany
Summer Vacation
10 artists – in the upcoming videos, our Fragment #51 will be in our studios.
Fragment #51 enjoyed its short summer on the farm in Taching am See in Upper Bavaria and is returning to Munich.
I invited nine artists to participate in the project "Fragment #51 - Munich Edition" – they all accepted, and the project can begin!
As part of the international project “CulturalxCollabs – Weaving The Future” by the Museum for Islamic Art Berlin, an independent contribution is being created in Munich: ten artists are collaboratively designing an art project that makes cultural interconnections, personal stories, and creative processes visible.
Each participant receives the carpet piece for a set period of time, lets themselves be inspired by it to create a contribution, and then passes it on. The results—artistic, documentary, and narrative—will be combined into a Gesamtkunstwerk (a collective artwork) and presented in an exhibition in 2026.
The 10 artists are:
- Berit Opelt
- Liz Walinski
- Rainer Kaiser
- Karin Horemans
- Furio Torracchi
- Lore Galitz
- Anni Rieck
- Andrea Unterstrasser
- Andreas Schmidt
- Fred Krüger
Handover of fragment #51 from Berit Opelt to Lore Galitz.
The ‘migration’ of Fragment #51 has begun. It is passed on from artist to artist.... and always stays in their studios for a while for inspiration.
I, Lore Galitz, make nature art. My art consists only of natural materials and is a dialogue with nature, a respectful, loving dialogue. It shows its wounds and thus also our wounds and transience, as well as the value and dignity of us all. At the same time, it is a dialogue about the nature of being.
To this end, I work with scattered or swept earth and sand as a reference to our natural basis of life and with meandering strands of wool and plants as representatives of the animal and human world and the world of plants.
Their poetic arrangements quietly tell archaic, powerful stories about change, intrinsic value and fundamental connection.
As a first welcome-warming, I have therefore bedded our rug piece #51 on a freshly shorn sheep's wool fleece, left as it is, to invite it into my world of natural materials.
A rug on a cloud of sheep's wool - a rug in contact with its origins.
Handover of Fragment #51 by Lore Galitz to Liz Walinski in front of the Museum Brandhorst in Munich.
From there, the fragment was allowed to cross the street with me to the Kremer Pigmente shop, internationally renowned for its variety of pigments from all over the world. For me, these pigments are the starting point for my work with the fragment.
Which colours were used? What is still visible and perceptible?
Fragment #51 is abstract in itself. This abstraction allows me a special personal narrative, comparable to a conversation with close friends and confidants.
Handover from Liz Walinski to Andrea Unterstrasser during a typical Bavarian Weißwurst breakfast
In Ottoman cultures, the carpet is an important part of the home and is regarded as a beloved member of the family. In its company, people eat and talk together, listen and live together, share joy and sorrow. The rug supports the feeling of home and belonging of family members and friends to a small community. A rug can be passed down within the family for many generations. Honour and recognition accompany it into the future and from one hand to the next. I therefore celebrate the handover of the rug to me in a convivial small group with typical food from my Bavarian homeland and our fragment #51 as guest of honour.
The journey begins...
...with Haya Alansari
As an assistant conservator at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, I often work behind the scenes—handling stories through materials, fibers, and quiet care. But when the fragment from the Caucasian Dragon Carpet arrived, it didn’t stay behind the scenes. I brought it with me into the exhibition Qatar: Close to My Soul—into the textures, gestures, and voices of Qatari modern and contemporary art.
It didn’t sit in a vitrine. It moved—from dhow paintings to daily life portraits, from hurufiyya to abstraction. It sat quietly, respectfully, beside each artwork. Listening. Leaning in.
In the final gallery, as “Allah Ya O’mri Qatar” played, it lay on the floor. Not displayed, but present. A guest with its own story of loss, renewal, and movement. A woven fragment meeting a sung devotion.
As Hans Ulrich Obrist later wrote, this wasn’t about display—it was about hospitality. For me, cultural diversity is just that: the power of one fragment to meet another culture and not break, but resonate. To be held, remembered, and passed on.
— Haya Alansari
CulturalxCollabs: A Fragment Walks into a Museum (on a Monday)
"On Mondays, galleries the rest. The tools come out. And this time, the carpet came with."
This isn’t a showroom. It is Mathaf's conservation lab. Where art lives between exhibits—in careful hands and rolling carts. On a maintenance day, the fragment joined the brushes, gloves, and even the silverfish trap, not as an outsider but as part of the workflow. It became a witness to the backstage rituals that preserve Qatar’s visual history. Conservation, like weaving, is quiet work. But it’s where the stories stay alive
Qatar: Close to My Soul
At Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art
Drawn from the collection of Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani
Modern and contemporary art in Qatar emerged as a visual extension of the political, economic, and sociocultural context of the country in the second half of the twentieth century. Qatar: Close to My Soul is a poetic journey through the nation’s visual culture, revealing a rich diversity of artists and thematic approaches across generations.
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.
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?
