Home | Works | Biography | Contact 
 back 

FLYING CARPET

Project Cairo Contact, Darb1718 Center for Contemporary Art and Culture
District of Fustat, Old Cairo, 2017

300 triangular plywood panels, found materials, blue paint, cable ties,70 sqm



The project "Flying Carpet" is a participatory art work that reflects the surroundings of the lively neighborhoods in Cairo that are crowded with people, honking cars, little shops, donkeys and garbage. As a portrait of the neighborhood the work includes various materials from the surroundings such as found objects, photos, carpets, traditional textiles, newspapers, plastics etc. Together with local artists, workshop participants and children from the neighborhood these environmental materials were collected and used to create a large number of triangular panels made from plywood.

In the following process all the panels were connected with one another to become parts of one large collage in the design of a traditional Arabic Girih pattern from the 12th century that serves as a general grid. It is composed out of a few basic shapes that can be attached endlessly always reproducing the typical ornament with the 10 pointed star that still can be found in many places of the Arabic world.

The structure of the "Flying Carpet" is flexible and the object can be shaped by folding and stretching it depending on the location where it is installed. The concept is to create a mobile artwork that ideally would be used as a temporary site-specific sculpture also in public spaces. At Darb1718 it was installed as a "material landscape" that reflects cultural, social and environmental aspects of the surroundings.