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 carpet in a relay race?
The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz has been participating in the 5x5 km team relay organized by the Berlin Water Companies for years. In 2024, we even brought 19 relay teams to the start. That's a lot of colleagues, many of whom you might not otherwise get to know.
We participated on May 15, 2024, the second of three race days. About 2,000 relay teams run each day, in addition to the Bambini races.
As wonderful as it is to have so many people participate in such a large event, problems do arise. Besides the unavoidable dust cloud from the churned-up ground, there's also the all-important baton exchange.
When 2,000 runners are waiting for their batons in the exchange zone in front of the Federal Chancellery, it can get quite chaotic.
The only solution is to communicate well and coordinate effectively...
...and to have a truly unique identifier with you – such as a carpet fragment.
Running times and placements are a topic, but rather a secondary one. We secured a good spot in the middle of the field. In any case, it was fun, and the baton exchange with the carpet worked so well that we will be back at the start next year, of course, not without our fragment #62!
The greek Easterbread
In Greece, during Easter, in addition to the traditional red-dyed eggs often adorned with patterns of flowers and leaves, there is also an aromatic sweet bread flavored with spices such as mastic and mahlep. Last week, the colleagues from the museum team also had this bread. Wait, last week? Wasn't Easter several weeks ago? No, it wasn't – because the Orthodox Easter rarely coincides with the Western Easter!
Called πάσχα (ˈpasxa) in Greek and Пасха (ˈpasxa) in Russian, derived from the Jewish פֶּסַח (pésach), Easter is the most important festival of the year for the Orthodox Church, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus. Easter is a moveable feast, meaning the exact date is calculated anew each year based on the lunar cycle, similar to the Jewish and Muslim calendars.
While in the Bible, the death and resurrection of Jesus coincided with the Jewish Passover, and the early Christians celebrated them together, later church leaders decided to link the Christian Easter to the beginning of spring. By the way, this time of year has also been significant for many pre-Christian traditions and cultures! Since then, a highly complex calculation system has been used to determine the date of the festival – different in the Western, or Catholic and Protestant, churches and in the Eastern, or Orthodox, churches. Thus, it happens that Easter is celebrated up to 5 weeks later in Eastern Europe and countries around the eastern Mediterranean than in Western Europe.
Orthodox Easter was celebrated this year on May 5th – the sweet Easter bread is baked a few days before the holiday and eaten on Easter Sunday and the days following, after the traditional approximately 50-day fasting period.
Victoria interned at Museum for Islamic Art for two weeks. Following is the story of the many activities, excursions and research she was a part of.
A Visit of the Museum's Permanent Collection!
My student internship begins with a tour of the museum's permanent exhibition, which is currently being dismantled and prepared for relocation. The first stop we visit is the Mshatta Facade. The facade is currently disassembled into individual parts and being prepared for relocation to the North Wing. Fragment #62 is always with us. The forklift truck makes the heavy load easier for us. Most objects from the exhibition rooms have already been taken down and packed, entire rooms are empty. But we spot something that is still hanging. A colorful "Lady in the Bathing Castle" is a poster of a wall painting that will be displayed in the new permanent exhibition. The painting originates from the bath of a desert castle in Amra, in the Jordanian desert. The original is currently undergoing restoration and is being prepared for relocation.
The museum is moving. How do you pack objects properly? After all, you can't just pack the objects in any ordinary moving box like you would for moving houses. For the move, you need many boxes and pallets, all of which must have standard dimensions to facilitate transportation. So, we measure the carpet fragment. But no, we realize unfortunately, that the fragment is too large for our (mini) box.
Next, we have a bit of geography lesson with the carpet. We look for places where you can find beautiful carpets on the map. Finally, we are in the Aleppo Room. The glass barrier that normally separates you from the Aleppo Room is overcome today with the carpet for you. Restorer Dr. Anke Scharrahs lets us into her workshop, where she works on parts of the wooden room's wall paneling. Our carpet fragment hangs loosely over her chair while she confides some secrets from her daily professional life to us.
A visit to the Museum Europäischer Kulturen in Dahlem
The joint excursion to the Museum Europäischer Kulturen in Dahlem took place in early February 2024. We accompanied our FSJ volunteer Anni and Victoria, who completed a two-week internship with us, on the trip. Fragment #62 was, of course, with us every step of the way!
The exhibition "Flechten" at the Museum für Europäische Kunst was very appealing. We tried out the media stations and interactive activities. The fragment fluttered in now and then as well. The station where you could braid your own bracelets was a lot of fun for both of them, so we made ourselves comfortable there for a short time. Victoria braided her own friendship bracelet, and Anni tried her hand at a braiding technique with cardboard.
Finally, we visited the special exhibition "LÄUFT!" at the MEK and learned about the topic of menstruation. For us, the question was how to convey such a topic to museum visitors and what innovative ideas the curators have implemented. The exhibition is very well done, and a visit is highly recommended. Of course, the carpet fragment couldn't be missing to accompany us.
A visit to the Botanischen Garten
After visiting the Museum of Europäische Kulturen in Dahlem, we continued to the Botanischen Garten, where we wanted to take a closer look at the exhibition concept of the tropical house and the individual areas with the plants. How are the plants arranged in the tropical house? How exactly does the "exhibition space" there work? Are the plants arranged arbitrarily?
From the beginning, we took the carpet fragment with us. First, there were underwater plants to admire, then we went straight to the tropical house. Everything was bigger than expected! Subsequently, we looked at the plants on-site and found out where they come from. Naturally, it was interesting for us to see which plants, for example, from the Middle East are found there. During our excursion, we also addressed the question of how the plants are presented to the visitors. The labels were studied intensively and compared with the requirements for a museum. We also searched for medicinal plants that have been (and are) used in Arabic science, for example, for tinctures.
We really did take the carpet with us and integrated it into the exhibition as you can see in the photos below. Naturally, we made sure that the plants were not damaged. One should not sit on the cactus, as that would be very painful. Therefore, Victoria decided to settle comfortably beside the cacti on the carpet, inspecting the cactus spikes from a safe distance.
The day flew by so quickly, and it was already dark when we left the garden. Finally, we say our goodbyes and bid farewell (and "Adieu" as Victoria, who is from Switzerland, would say). It was a wonderful excursion with many surprising moments!
A visit to the Escape Room at the Einstein Center
We arrived at the Einstein Center and had been looking forward to exploring the escape room together with our dear colleagues from the Technical University and the Humboldt University for days. Robert Richter (TU) was so kind to show us the room and guide us through the escape game. He didn't help us, that much we can reveal at this point. Clara and Miriam accompanied us that day.
We started directly with the carpet fragment under our arms for the puzzle adventure, feeling confident that we could solve all the riddles. None of us had prior experience with quantum technology. Our task was to start a quantum computer because there had been a hacker attack, and only it could muster the computing power to fend off the attack. Robert gave us a few tips and then (quite casually) started the timer. We only had 35 minutes to crack the escape room. Naturally, we immediately panicked about how to solve the puzzles.
There were many puzzles, such as a "radioactive" plant that could open a secret compartment. To do this, we had to use a Geiger counter to see where there was "radioactive radiation" in the room. Of course, it wasn't real radiation. Lucky for us! The puzzles were quite tricky, so we had to think really hard several times. They didn't make it easy for us in that escape room!
All in all, they were great puzzles. We finished in under 35 minutes (33:50 to be exact). The hacker attack has been successfully thwarted! YES! YEAH!
Once again, a big thank you to Robert, Clara, and Miriam for allowing us to come to the Einstein Center and solve the escape room together with you.
Visiting the museum's construction site
Fragment #62 embarked on its first adventure in January 2024 as part of a long journey. During a weekend in January, the small carpet accompanied Stefan Weber, the director of the Museum for Islamic Art, on a tour of the construction site for the museum's new permanent exhibition.
Currently, everything is under renovation there – it's a construction site with all the elements it entails. The construction work is expected to be completed in the year 2027. To build anticipation, the fragment was taken as a kind of prelude to the new museum era into the new spaces.
The two-hour tour was accompanied by very interesting explanations from the museum director about the upcoming new construction. In the Garden Hall, the carpet was then placed in a location where a carpet will occasionally be exhibited.
Stefan Weber explained to the interested audience the layout of the exhibition space. Furthermore, the CulturalxCollabs - Weaving the Future project, centered around Fragment #62, was presented.
In early February, the carpet will embark on a short journey again, which we will be happy to report on, and then it will continue to an as-yet-undisclosed location, which we will soon reveal.
The Journey begins...
...with the Museum für Islamische Kunst.
Fragment No. 62 begins its journey from the vernissage on 23.09 and is currently taking rounds of the Museum for Islamic Art's offices, including the coffee room and visiting the workshop in the Archaeological Center.
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?
