Abstract
This article examines contemporary Turkish German artist Nevin Aladağ’s carpet collages Wind (2019) and Skylight Spring (2021) in relation to the iconic window designs of American Midwestern architect Frank Lloyd Wright. By cutting up and conjoining pieces of distinctly patterned carpets from around the world, Aladağ plays with the trope of the Oriental carpet and Orientalism’s hierarchical ordering system. Her collagistic compositions, which incorporate stylistic elements of Wright’s design practice, link disparate patterns, times, and places. Building on Wright’s own understanding of windows as light screens that connect inside and outside, Dickinson reads Aladağ’s collages as powerful heterotopias that cut across multiple other boundaries. Upending the scopic regime of Orientalism, they challenge distinctions between Orient/Occident and traditional/modern, while encouraging the viewer to rethink the power of her own gaze and personal associations with the work of art.
Published Version
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