Fragment No. 97

From Antarctica to a Rug Fragment: Care across Distance, Heritage across Cultures

Holding the rug fragment from the Berlin’s Museum of Islamic Art in my hands, I am reminded of a simple truth that heritage does not need to be whole to be powerful. A fragment can carry an entire world. It can hold the intelligence of craft, the memory of communities, and the traces of journeys from human journeys, material journeys to the slow journey of ideas across time.

I am an archaeologist and heritage professional from Bangladesh, living in Germany for the last eight years. My path has taken me through different landscapes and learning environments, including studies in heritage in Germany and Egypt. Today, I work as a Scientific Associate at the German Maritime Museum (DSM) in Bremerhaven, where my focus is Antarctic heritage. That work continually deepens my understanding of what it means to care for the past and why that care must be shared.

At first glance, Antarctica and a woven textile might seem to belong to separate worlds. One is a polar landscape of ice and wind, often imagined as remote and empty; the other comes from human settlements, domestic spaces, and everyday life. Yet both speak the same language of fragility and responsibility. Antarctic heritage survives in conditions that can preserve traces for long periods with its freezing temperature but it is also exceptionally vulnerable, exposed to environmental change, logistical limits, and the fact that the place is far from most people’s daily lives. Preserving it requires international cooperation, careful research, and a clear ethical compass. It requires a belief that even what is distant matters, and that the stories held in remote places still belong to humanity.

This is where the rug fragment becomes more than an object. A rug, too, is an archive but just written in fibers rather than ink. It carries decisions about materials and dyes, about what patterns are meaningful, about which techniques are worth preserving, teaching and repeating. It carries the touch of hands and the rhythm of work of generation of learning. Most importantly, it carries exchange. Textiles have always travelled across regions, across languages, across cultures and across belief systems. Motifs and methods move with people through trade, migration, diplomacy and sometimes through displacement. When we look closely, we often find that what seems local includes influences from elsewhere, woven so deeply into the design that they become inseparable from the whole. In that sense, the rug fragment and Antarctic heritage are connected by the same idea: human history is made through movement and encounter. No culture grows in isolation. No tradition remains untouched by others. Diversity is not a modern fashion, it is an ancient condition of being human.

Working at the DSM also keeps this idea close to me in a very practical way. Museums are places where journeys become visible: objects, materials, and knowledge arrive from different contexts, and our task is to research them carefully, preserve them responsibly, and share their meanings with the public. When I walk through the museum spaces at my workplace surrounded by evidence of how far people have traveled, explored and exchange ideas through ships and maritime activities, I am reminded that connection is not an exception in human history. It is the pattern.

Working on Antarctic heritage has taught me to think a lot about stewardship. Antarctica does not belong to one nation or one community in the way that many heritage sites do. It is shaped by international frameworks, scientific presence, and shared responsibility. That shared responsibility is not always simple, but it is meaningful. It asks us to practice care beyond our immediate borders and identities. It invites us to ask: What does it mean to protect something we may never “own,” but still value? How do we honour histories that are complicated, multinational, and sometimes uncomfortable?

These questions are equally relevant when we speak about cultural diversity in our everyday lives. In diverse societies, we constantly meet stories that are not originally ours. We encounter languages, customs and memories that do not match our childhood. Diversity asks us to expand our idea of belonging from something based on sameness to something built through respect and experience. It pushes us to see cultural difference not as a threat, but as a resource, a source of creativity, resilience, and deeper understanding.