Project commissioned by the Municipality of Altach as “Percentage for the Arts” project within the Islamic Cemetery Altach by Bernardo Bader, Altach.

Materials: Stainless steel mesh curtains, wooden shingles, new wool hand-woven carpets (flat-weave)

Dimensions: Curtains 300 x 300 x 290 cm; Carpets: 600 x 100 x 110 cm

Concept and design: Azra Akšamija

Research: Dietmar Offenhuber (conceptual contributions), Bernardo Bader (materials)

Production: Eva Grabherr (project management and mediation), Attila Dincer (spokesperson of the Islamic Community in Vorarlberg); Bernardo Bader (architecture of the cemetery and implementation); Thomas Marte (construction manager); Eberle Metall (metal work and shingles); Amila Smajović and the Association For The Protection Of The Bosnian Carpet (carpet weaving)

Financing: Municipalities and the Regional Government of Vorarlberg, Land Vorarlberg, donations of the Islamic Communities of Vorarlberg

Photographs: Adolf Bereuter

Also see: “Islamic Cemetery Altach, Austria,” in Architecture of Life: Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2013, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi, 198–215. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers, 2013.

Installation (2012)
Commissioned by Onomatopee, Eindhoven, NL

This project gathers together a collection of anti-Muslim signs used by Islamophobic groups in Western Europe and appropriates them to create a multicultural response. The design of the signs evokes the system of isotypes used on public roads and transport systems. Against the essentialist grain of the isotype, we produce signs that simultaneously tag Islamophobic movements and warn against them, much as traffic isotypes warn about traffic conditions. The notion of threat and warning is thereby questioned: what do we really need to be alarmed about? Is it the mosques being built or the protests against them?

Installation (2012)
Commissioned by the Architectural Forum Upper-Austria (afo), Linz, AT
Co-authored with Joel Lamere

Unity Textile Muqarnas is a textile structure based on Islamic muqarnas, stalactite-like decorative three-dimensional elements found in Islamic monuments. The structure is hung from the neo-Gothic archway of the exhibition’s entrance. The modular structure of the muqarnas has been transformed and sewn together into a complex whole to signalize the need for a transcultural aesthetic characterized by a formal experimentation and enrichment through cultural interactions.