Dialogue II — Water for the Dragon

A Dialogue with the Seventeenth-Century Caucasian Dragon Carpet

Introduction

This dialogue is especially meaningful to me because I come from the Caucasus.

The dialogue begins with a seventeenth-century Caucasian Dragon Carpet preserved in the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin. During the Second World War, an incendiary bomb destroyed a large part of the carpet. During its restoration, the missing areas were deliberately left visible rather than reconstructed, allowing the history of destruction to remain part of the work itself.

 

Many years later, a contemporary Doppelgänger was created to enter into dialogue with the original. Through the CulturalxCollabs project, I received Fragment No. 65 of this contemporary carpet and became part of the dialogue it had already begun.

The Author’s Act

While preparing to work with the fragment, I felt that one element was still missing: water.

The carpet carried fire, loss, memory, restoration, and the continued presence of the Dragon. I did not want to answer the fire, erase the damage, or intervene in the history of destruction. My attention remained with the Dragon.

In my act, I pour water into my hand. As the water disappears, one transparent bead remains. That single bead enters the remaining woven surface of the carpet and rests almost invisibly within it, like a drop of water.

I do not answer destruction with another act of destruction. I do not attempt to extinguish what belongs to the carpet’s history.

I answer life with life.

I offer water to the Dragon.

 

 

The Dialogue

This dialogue does not challenge the history of the carpet or attempt to correct it. I accept everything that already exists: the original weaving, the fire, the missing areas, the restoration, and the contemporary dialogue created through the Doppelgänger.

My act does not replace any of them. It adds one more real act.

The transparent bead is sewn into the part of the carpet that remains. It does not enter the areas of loss, repair what was destroyed, or respond to the fire. It enters the surviving woven field as water offered to the Dragon.

The original carpet carries its history. The Doppelgänger responds to that history. My act enters the continuing relation between them and introduces another presence: water, life, and care.

The field remains. The act enters. The dialogue continues.

The Unit

One transparent bead. One real act. Water for the Dragon.