these threads

Cigdem Aydemir & Eiman Al Ubudy

On These Threads, 2015

Single Channel HD video projected onto rug, no sound

4 min 3 sec, carpet size: 200 x 290 cm



On These Threads is a collaboration bringing together the poetry of Eiman AlUbudy and art practice of Cigdem Aydemir. It probes and plays with the allure associated with magic carpet imagery as found in the 1001 nights legend, using the medium of the Middle Eastern styled rug, an object both familiar to the Iraqi household and made foreign through the animation of text. This work provides a disjuncture between popular imagery associated with Iraqi Muslim women, often floating between fantasy and fear, and the experiences of such women that live on the ground in Baghdad or Bankstown, Fallujah or Fairfield.

This project was produced during a residency at the Powerhouse Youth Theatre in Fairfield, and exhibited in the Little Baghdad: 1001 nights in Fairfield exhibition at Fairfield City Museum and Art Gallery.

Poem: Eiman Al Ubudy
Animation/Install: Cigdem Aydemir



these threads






Acknowledgements

Photo and video credit: Tim Talty