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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...
The journey begins...
...with Zahed Sultan
A Gathering of Forgotten Voices
I would bring together living members of communities whose histories, traditions and contributions have been forgotten, marginalized or erased from the stories we tell about modern culture and society, and place them together in a space deeply familiar to the Gulf: the diwaniya, or majlis.
Balochis, Kawliya, Nubians, Ahwazis, Qiyan, Sahrawis, Afro-Arabs, Fidjeri custodians and Zar practitioners among others would gather to exchange stories about their origins, migration, identity, buried histories and the ways cultures are absorbed, renamed, forgotten or claimed as something else.
Each community member would showcase an excerpt of their cultural expression: a dance, a song, a poem, a rhythm, a ritual or a story. These fragments would become points of connection; breaking centuries-old boundaries. Conclusively, without a script, hierarchy or predetermined outcome, rhythms would amalgamate, melodies and words would harmonize, movement would take form and seemingly contrasting traditions would instinctively begin to intertwine.
In an act of setting imprisoned remembrance free, living traditions would cross time and borders, revealing how culture was shaped by meeting, moving, borrowing, adapting and co-creating. A gathering of forgotten voices would collectively imagine where we might be going next.
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?
