Fragment No. 61

Fragment #61 – Substitute Image for a Missing Fragment

In place of the lost carpet fragment #61, this contribution presents the photograph DIF_000889_318, taken by Armin Linke at the Museum for Islamic Art, National Museums in Berlin. The image depicts textile fragments from the museum's collection and was deliberately chosen as both a visual and conceptual substitute for the missing fragment.

The original Fragment #61 was lost during transport and no longer exists as a physical object. Rather than concealing this loss, the project makes it visible and transforms it into a productive gesture: the photograph assumes the role of a stand-in. It does not replace the fragment as an object but instead marks its absence, shifting the focus from the individual carpet fragment to the museum's institutional context of textiles, fragments, and preservation.

The photograph depicts carpets and textile fragments in a state of storage and classification. It points to the practices of collecting, archiving, and conservation—processes that are themselves integral to the history of objects. In this sense, the image becomes a new fragment within the CulturalxCollabs project: a fragment of the institution, of the gaze, and of mediation.

The museum's historic Dragon Carpet visibly bears the traces of its own destruction. During its restoration, missing areas were not reconstructed but instead filled with neutral backing fabric. This approach is echoed here. The gap left by Fragment #61 remains recognisable as such, yet it is addressed through another medium: photography as both a documentary and an interpretive practice.

DIF_000889_318 thus functions as a substitute fragment that does not claim material continuity but instead establishes a conceptual connection. It expands the journey of CulturalxCollabs through a museological perspective and raises the question of how objects, images, and institutions jointly produce meaning.

Fragment #61 no longer continues its journey as a textile but as an image and a narrative. Its transmission no longer takes place through physical transport but through observation, contextualisation, and public engagement. The missing fragment becomes part of the story—and, in doing so, becomes part of the project.

Photo: DIF_000889_318: Armin Linke, Museum for Islamic Art, National Museums in Berlin, textile fragments, Berlin, Germany, 2022 © Armin Linke, 2022. The photo was taken as part of the 4A Lab research program (2019–2023), a collaboration between the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, in partnership with Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Forum Transregionale Studien.