«Young Carpet Stories»

Sun 12.12.21 13:00 – 14:00

This open conversation brings together three young voices who, from different perspectives, share stories about their carpets.

Tabea Meienhofer is a student at the Department of Architecture at ETH. As part of the Newrope Design in Dialog Lab, she is developing a semester-long project consisting of interventions that utilize a blue carpet and invite people to come together and exchange ideas with one another. She calls said carpet her “friend” who accompanies her as she explores the urban landscape. Different environments and occasions thus become a field of experimentation for both the unraveling of the carpet and the unpredictable.

Club La Fafa is a collective of cultural workers as well as people from different professions, all with migration and refugee experience. of cultural workers as well as people from various professions, all with migration and refugee experiences. They meet regularly at various locations throughout the city to exchange questions, experiences and practical knowledge. In addition to culinary delights, they are always accompanied by one or, in the best case, several carpets.

The members of the group include Rahimullah Mohammadi and Hicham El Khemisi, two young people from Afghanistan and Algeria, respectively. Growing up, they have been surrounded by different stories about rugs. Rahimullah, like many Afghans, has several carpet weavers in his family. Since men often deny their spouses to work beyond the house, it is mostly women who weave these coveted and expensive carpets at home, which take about six months to make.

Talk in German (with translation from French to German)
With: Hicham El Khemisi, Tabea Meienhofer, and Rahimullah Mohammadi

This event is part of Future Structures, a collaboration between ETH Newrope and Open Futures
With the generous support of: Georg und Bertha Schwyzer-Winiker-Stiftung