The Flying Rug

The Flying Rug installation series arises from Orientalist myths and legends, the flying carpet of Prophet Suleiman, the Arabian Nights, and our desire for instant gratification. The sculptures also allude to the rise and fall of Islamic culture and civilization, arriving at the present condition of the representation of Muslim identities, oscillating between violent and passive histories. Their shadows on the wall suggest an Oriental dream and the Occidental fascination with the East. Since the nineteenth century, these dreams and stories have provided the criteria by which secular travelers to the East judged their own experiences, and conversely, they also translate into the Eastern fascination for the thriving, modern West. The Flying Rug IV and the Flying Rug of Drones argue these binary associations. As the flying rugs reveal folded US dollar planes and lethal blade planes, the fantasy changes to the current reality of the post-9/11 world of anxiety, extremism, fear, Islamophobia and the War on Terror. These flying rugs poetically conjure dark complexities and require contemplation from the viewer, rather than repeat the didactic certainties so often proclaimed in extremist propaganda and populist media.