ORIENTAL RUGS/FRIENDSHIP
– an intervention –

MAK Vienna, Oriental collection, 2012

With the participation of Rudolf Koppensteiner, carpet dealer, Vienna/Teheran; Dr. Behrooz Bayat, atomic physicist, Vienna, Executive Committee of the United Republicans of Iran; Ahmad Haschemi, engineer, Green Party Vienna; Jaleh Lackner Gohari, medical doctor, co-foundr of the Society of Independent Iranian Women Vienna.

Oriental Rugs/Friendship was a critical de/postcolonial intervention in a museum space in the form of partially scripted thematic lecture/presentation/discussion which featured guests with statements related to that museum display. By talking about rugs, their history and present, economics and aesthetics several Austrian-Iranians gave insights into Iranian socio-political landscape, and related international dynamics as well as grasped Austrian political reality and their position within it, which stirred up emotions. Approx. 20 people participated.

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“I invite you to take part in an event set in a museum’s oriental collection, where together we will ponder friendships among people. There will be several Iranians present from a variety of social areas. Among the invited guests is Dr. Behrooz Bayat, an atomic physicist. We will be asking him an important question. Together we will watch a short documentary film in Persian, in order to reflect upon cultural understanding beyond language limitations.”
(From the wording of the invitation.)

As usual, I was concerned with making the museum space available to persons and content that would otherwise have only limited access there. My point of departure was a simple question: Who was it that took it upon themselves to bring oriental rugs to Vienna? - Carpet dealers. So, I invited carpet dealer Rudolf Koppensteiner to be the lead speaker for the event, while the aim was to enhance and question the complexity of cultural representation, the power relations and economic background of a representative museum space. How is Western acknowledgment of Persian rugs as valuable cultural museum artifacts to be evaluated? Does it apply only to rugs? Is it at all conceivable, that these centuries-old, mediated relations of commercial interest could be redesigned as a democratic, communicative relationship and an equal transfer between cultures/nations? The idea was to converse with persons who personally relate with the geography and culture of the exhibits.

First Mr. Koppensteiner presented his company, its two offices in Vienna and Teheran, his two Iranian partners, and his own rug collection. (We prepared together his power point presentation for which I also photographed his collection.) The current political situation, multiculturalism within Persian carpet production, types of folk art that are endangered by industrialization, and the US embargo on Iranian rugs were addressed in the course of our two-hour session. “Who weaves the carpets?” was one of the questions voiced during the presentation. In reply to this, Mrs. Lackner Gohari, doctor and activist, founder of several civil organizations, spoke about the role of Iranian woman. The biographies of our guests were an important element of my introduction and moderation, in order to accentuate the personal aspects of each political issue.

Then we looked at a Youtube video in Persian, a short documentary about the recent assassination of a young nuclear scientist from Teheran University. Afterwards I asked our atomic expert, Mr. Bayat, the following question: “Could oriental rugs indeed prevent a nuclear war?” Mr. Bayat’s speech was serious and it merged with a discussion about the video shown before. Comments and arguments alongside the elements of regime propaganda that were visible in the video, as well as other aspects of understanding among individuals, cultures and communities, also became an important topic. Subsequently, Mr. Haschemi, an engineer, active member of the Austrian Green Party, gave a speech about the dualism of western morals, which ended with a poem of his. A lively discussion followed.

Tension between the two groups, guests and audience, Iranians and Austrians, as well as the tension between all of us and the room itself, would come and go during the event. The space had such a scenic quality that while at one moment everything felt surreal, at the very next, the ‘simple’ reality of intercultural exchange talk would take over. Our emotions would break in the space between us in those moments when the Iranians felt threatened by that what ‘others’ might think, and when that ‘other’ started being aware of this. At that point, we would quickly get into our ‘empowerment mode’ and establish ourselves as one group (key word ‘friendship’), re-appropriating a representative Austrian-monarchic museum scene with its Persian rugs. My discreet moderation was all about that – letting us balance between those tensions. Museum visitors would regularly approach us and listen for a while. In the days to come, I continued to receive extremely emotional feedback from both sides.

RELATED 
ecm, Applied Exhibiting 

CREDITS 
Kristina Leko, Oriental Rugs/Friendship was an action/happening, May 11, 2012, duration 2 hours,  at MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna; as part of the conference Applied Exhibiting, organized by the ecm – educating/curating/managing studies of the University for Applied Arts, Vienna.  Photos: Kristina Leko, N.N.

GENRE&FORMATS
Project: intervention/happening/action in museum space; participatory project; project with specific social groups; oral history project; social plastic. Artwork/s and artifacts: lecture, discussion, social interaction.