This is the first installment of a travel series exploring the communicative nature of carpets, by Misha Hollenbach (PAM) and Andrea Caputo (Plusdesign).

For the first ‘leg’ of this journey, Hollenbach and Caputo curated a group of international artists (Barry McGee, Todd James, Susan Kare, Anton Bruhin, Misha Hollenbach, Antwan Horfee, & Matt Damhave), challenging them to design carpets that would be woven by Berber women in Morocco’s High Atlas mountain range.

Designs in hand - including an ASCII text message design from San Francisco artist Barry McGee - the crew trekked through the mountains in search of looms. Accompanied by documentarian creatives Invernomuto, every step though barren terrain was recorded, in the name of field research - going to the source on foot, without predetermined contacts and eschewing traditional rug dealers. In a sense, cultivating wild exemplars.

Further “Rug Trip” projects will take them to Sardinia, Mexico, Armenia, India and Tibet, investigating parallels and encouraging conversations between different cultures.