Intertwingled, GNAMC, Roma, 2022

The word "intertwingled" was coined in 1960 by the American sociologist and philosopher Ted Nelson to define the complexity of the interconnections in the field of knowledge, where there are no isolated subjects, but there is knowledge as a whole, made up of myriad connections and cross-relationships, which cannot be disentangled and neatly divided into a hierarchical order, but must be explored in many dimensions. Only in this way can the connections and transformations of our world be made visible. Embracing this vision, the exhibition Intertwingled - The Role of the Rug in Arts, Crafts and Design, curated by Martí Guixé and Inga Knölke, represents an extraordinary example, and offers for the first time a fascinating, open, and disruptive interpretation of the interconnected world in which we live. From the Salone Centrale to the Sala delle Colonne, and through precise references to the artworks in Time is Out of Joint, the exhibition explores rugs and tapestries in different fields – art, craft, design – and projects them into more conceptual realms, establishing new relationships with ideas such as nomadism, real estate, visible and invisible networks, hypertext, decentralized power, non-linear narratives, and the inherent power in the concept of unity.

Carpets and tapestries are physically composed of a multitude of threads and knots that intertwine to create patterns and surfaces. Therefore, they are both metaphors and interfaces of a device that shows-and-hides the weft and warp from which they originated. Carpets and tapestries can be interpreted as ways of occupying space in a material and metaphorical sense, since their fabric is also composed of political, economic, and social relationships. The network – seen as a framework, a palimpsest, a proto-configuration of a carpet or tapestry – is also the proto-configuration of our society and culture. And it is only by adopting this systemic thought, which is fueled by connections, that we can understand our cultural and material ecosystem, from small habits up to large scale decisions.