TO THE OTHER END

Exhibition of the project ‘To the other end’ at Onomatopee, Eindhoven, NL, April 8 – May 29, 2011. Onomatopee 61: Research project, Global Villaging – Stories of Cosmopolite Anthropologists. (Onomatopee is an institution for reflection and communication. The foundation aims to question the parameters of our (designed) culture through research and presentations.)

TO THE OTHER END

We started the project with the production a Persian carpet in Lake Grace, Australia. With help from local farmers and crafts people we learned how to shear a sheep and card and spin wool. From the wool we produced a black and white copy of a Baluchi funeral carpet. After a year of knotting we completed the carpet and took it with us on a trip to Bahrain during the feast of sacrifice in November 2010. On a local cattle market we searched for an Australian sheep from Lake Grace. When we identified one through the code on the ear tag, we asked a local family to sacrifice the sheep on our carpet during the feast. They organized a butcher who executed the religious ritual on their behalf in front of their house. After the butcher anatomized the sheep with great skill, the meat was distributed among the poor. Our aim was to send the bloodstained carpet back to the Australian farm where the sheep was raised, but it got rejected during customs inspection. We took the carpet to the Netherlands and are still in process of sending it to Australia.

So far we knotted 60.000 knots over a distance of 60 centimeters. In a few days we reach the halfway point.

For the coming 8 weeks we need to knot 1,7 cm a day in order to complete the entire carpet.

Click here to download the Countryman article