The artwork belongs to Shaheer Zazai’s acclaimed Digital Carpet series, a body of work that reimagines the cultural and historical significance of carpets through the medium of digital technologies. At the heart of the series lies an exploration of the deep relationship between gardens and carpets—two intertwined motifs that, across Islamic and South Asian traditions, symbolize paradise, order, and contemplative beauty. By mimicking the logic of carpet knotting within a word processing software, Zazai translates centuries-old textile practices into the language of the digital screen.
What emerges is a meditative and improvisational process: the designs may initially appear to echo traditional carpet patterns, yet they are in fact generated by numerical and algorithmic decisions made during composition. This tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar destabilizes assumptions about authenticity, craftsmanship, and cultural memory. The pixelated geometries both honor the aesthetics of handwoven traditions and question how heritage adapts when mediated by contemporary tools.
Through this digital re-weaving, Zazai invites viewers to reflect on how technology can become a vessel for preserving, transforming, and even reinterpreting cultural identity. The Digital Carpet series operates as both homage and critique—paying tribute to the artistry of textile traditions while suggesting that digital interfaces, like looms, are themselves sites of creativity, improvisation, and storytelling.
