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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 Shahin Sadatolhosseini
World Championships in Rhönrad and Cyr Gymnastics
For 30 years, my heart has belonged to Rhönrad gymnastics. I love this special sport, which combines acrobatics, elegance and music in such a unique way.
This summer, #68 accompanied me to the World Championships in Cyr and Rhönrad Gymnastics in Almere/Netherlands. I have been active in this sport for many years as a gymnast, choreographer and coach, and this time I supported a young gymnast in the competition. It is always exciting to get excited and hope that all the gymnastics elements work out - like we have practiced hundreds of times in training!!!
And it is also very exciting to see which young athletes are coming up in the different nations. And of course it is wonderful to see so many familiar faces and companions again.
The World Championships are like a big family reunion every time.
The Journey Begins...
...with Shahin Sadatolhosseini
My name is Shahin Tivay Sadatolhosseini. For 38 years, I have been living as an artist, photographer, gym wheel artist, and choreographer in Aachen, after leaving my birth country, Iran, during the Iran-Iraq War as a teenager. It has long been my desire to build bridges between my two identities, between Germany and Iran. Therefore, in recent years, I have realized two major art projects, in which I walked with my gym wheel from Aachen to Tehran and from Aachen to Washington DC. The projects RollEast and YavashYavash had diverse goals and levels of significance, reflecting important current themes of our time. During the 1,053 days and 8,210 km, I photographed the gym wheel daily in the changing landscapes, seasons, and with the people I encountered, sharing the photos in my blogs. The striking, 2-meter-high wheel aroused curiosity and gave me encounters with interesting people every day, with whom I could discuss the burning questions of our time and break down prejudices. Additionally, I captured the second project as a one-man filmmaker in front of and behind the camera with up to four cameras running simultaneously. I am currently processing the material into an artistic feature-length documentary film: a RollMovie.
At the same time, I am preparing a new art project, in which I will embark on a journey from Aachen to Tehran again in 2025 with a wooden bicycle and bring my gym wheel to a museum in Iran by trailer. Along the way, I will plant a tree every 6.5 km - an ancient Persian unit of length and the distance of 1000 rotations of the gym wheel - for which I will find local sponsors and thus create an avenue of trees as well as a network of people and trees. On this journey, the carpet fragment #68 will accompany me and, among other places, cross the origin region of the Dragon Carpet, the Caucasus. But first, #68 will embark on a journey to the northwest of the USA, to Christo Mroz in Gig Harbor. He is currently crafting an exceptionally beautiful and sustainably made wooden frame for the bicycle that will carry me 4000 km to Tehran next year.
Happy Nowruz!
#68 celebrates Nowruz, the Persian New Year, today. Seven things that start with the letter s welcome the New Year and celebrate the beginning of spring. These include apples (sib), vinegar (serket), garlic (sir), whiteberries (senjet), sumac (somag), hyacinths (sonbol) and freshly germinated seeds (sabze). #68 arrived a few days ago at the LOGOI gallery in Aachen, where I am currently having an exhibition and showing very different works from my artistic work.
More on that soon…
Exhibition at the LOGOI gallery in Aachen
The carpet fragment #68 was now a guest in my exhibition at the LOGOI gallery in Aachen for two months. It had a special place in the gallery window alongside the artworks on display. There it lay next to clay tablets on which I had recorded the stages of my extensive journeys on foot from Aachen to Tehran (2015-17) and from Aachen to Washington DC (2021/22) in a kind of logbook in ancient Persian cuneiform script. In addition to large-format photographs of my two art projects RollEast and YavashYavash and a video installation, artworks on canvas were also on display. I had collected prints of manhole covers on the white canvases during my travels - my own personal pilgrim's stamps, which can be used to trace my journey in a circular form: from Aachen via Prague, Budapest, Belgrade and Istanbul to Tehran.
But the carpet fragment has also been given its own travel stamp: During the opening hours of the exhibition, I sat in the gallery and embroidered the carpet fragment. It now bears the number 68 in ancient Persian cuneiform script.
The number 68 embroidered in ancient Persian cuneiform script
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?
