Battleground: War Carpets from Afghanistan April 23, 2008

Daily 11 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Wednesday 11:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Curated by Max Allen. When the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Afghan weavers found their world turned upside down, the sky and the earth thick with weaponry. On their rugs, flowers turned into cluster bombs, birds turned into airplanes. The disaster continued during the following ten years of brutal civil war. And it continues today as international forces battle in an ancient land that has exploded. The “war carpets” are a record of these events.

While at the TMC, check out To War with a Pencil, a compilation of drawings by Canadian artist Richard Johnson. In 2007, Johnson documented the efforts of the Canadian soldiers in Kandahar by drawing pictorial reports for the National Post. Then visit Strangers in a Strange Land – Military Insignia from the Afghan Wars to learn about the patches worn by soldiers on their sleeves to identify fighting units. The identification patches have also served as a significant image-source for the Afghan war carpets exhibited in Battleground, presenting a view of the war from another and radically different perspective.
Members free; Non-members $12; Full-time Students $6.

Textile Museum of Canada
55 Centre Avenue
Toronto ON M5G 2H5
416 599 5321
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Official Website: http://www.textilemuseum.ca