Frontier Vest
Wearable device, 10 photographs (2006)
Commissioned by the Gallery of Contemporary Art Leipzig, Germany, DE
The Frontier Vest hybridizes different religious equipment and a contemporary vest design. This wearable prototype lends itself to different purposes, both sacred and secular. Shared histories and belief systems of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are translated into a hybrid design of a jacket that can be transformed either into a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, or into an Islamic prayer rug. The Frontier Vest can be worn by both men and women, the equivalent use in Jewish and Islamic religious sermons is a task to be negotiated within the individual religious communities. For this, it needs a congregation of at least ten in Judaism (minyan), two in Islam (masjid), and three in Christianity. While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share the belief in one God, belonging to one implies a level of exclusion from the others. As socio-psychological boundaries often generate spatial ones, the Frontier Vest counters sectarian territoriality with the proposition of a potential communal space. Yet, this individual territory can only become collective through overcoming the mutual fear of otherness.
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Project commissioned by the Gallery of Contemporary Art, Leipzig, for the group exhibition Liminal Spaces / Grenzräume, curated by Galit Eilat, Reem Fadda, Philipp Misselwitz. The exhibition is a part of the project Liminal Spaces, organized as a collaboration of the Israeli Centre for Digital Art Holon, the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Arts PACA and the University of the Arts Berlin
Materials: textiles, 2 Tzitzit, 1 Tefillin, 1 Fatima’s hand jewelry, photographs
Dimensions: jacket size, 38 (EU); photos, variable
Concept and production: Azra Akšamija
Research: Deniz Turker (conceptual contribution)
Production: Azra Akšamija (design, pattern), Evelyn Funes (sewing); Saeed Arida, Saba Ghole, Sadia Shirazi, Neri Oxman (models)
Photographs: Azra Akšamija
Also see: Azra Akšamija, Mosque Manifesto: Propositions for Spaces of Coexistence. Berlin: Revolver Publishing, 2015.