CARPET PAGES PROJECTS
CARPET PAGES V: CODE
​
December 2022
This year’s Carpet Pages V: Code show is made up of artworks that all include a QR code. The works exist across physical and virtual space and are scattered in both the physical and digital world, and are united in the virtual. Anybody anywhere who sees the physical artwork, wherever it exists in the world - in other shows, in artists' studios, hosted across other artists' websites - scans the QR code which takes them to this website where they can see both the originating artwork as well as encounter other artworks. The one leads to the many. There are painters, filmmakers, a cross stitcher, a Lego mosaic maker, a miniaturist and a calligrapher. Scanning the QR code embedded in each dispersed artwork takes visitors on a marginal jump into virtual space, hosted here, where you can see both the originating artwork as well as other artworks spread out in a digital carpet which both exists and doesn’t exist at the same time.
​
​
Jumana Emil Abboud
Susan Collins
Jasmir Creed
Robert Mead
Caspian Prazmari
Vaishali Prazmari
Samiur Rahman
Alexa Seligman
Xanthe Seligman Carr
Nastassja Simensky
Yein Son
Andrew Stahl
​
Digital print 450 x 800 mm 2022 Nastassja Simensky
Digital image 778 x 456 mm 2022 Yein Son
Pomegranate pigment, vegetable ink and pencil on paper 36 x 48 cm 2022 Jumana Emil Abboud
Digital print 450 x 800 mm 2022 Nastassja Simensky
CARPET PAGES V: CODE
​
A hybrid physical-digital project that exists both in tangible and virtual space
Zeros and ones
And wool once it’s spun
Sitting pretty on warp and weft
In a carpet we find
Real and virtual aligned
Yet separate, the two ways are cleft
From country to city
This art by committee
Spans a great distance vast
QR works in the world
In the rug lie unfurled
The internet gets you there fast
Real and virtual swapping
And binary-craft hopping
On and offline states in a flow
Tangible art
A digital chart
Of QR codes all in a row
​
If you want to have a go yourself, follow this video below:
Carpet Pages
The Carpet Pages cycle is a project series presented by artist and curator Vaishali Prazmari. The dazzling title pages of both Islamic and Medieval European manuscript books were called Carpet Pages in reference to their intricate rug-like patterns. These exquisitely detailed and highly ornamented and illuminated surfaces were covered in arabesques and geometric patterns and often included the use of gold and jewel-like, precious pigments. As book pages are sequential, so future projects will build on this 5th chapter. Carpets are visual feasts for the eye and this 5th iteration in the Carpet Pages cycle promises the same. The curator's love of carpets also reflects the wider goal of this project sequence which is to bring together diverse ideas into a whole; to unite disparate elements into a unified pattern, which is one of the goals of rug-making itself.