Ido Michaeli | Central Park Carpets

Ido Michaeli’s 'Central Park Carpets' reimagine Central Park—one of New York City’s most iconic locations—through the lens of traditional Persian tapestry weaving. Created in collaboration with master weavers in Afghanistan, the series translates the park’s aerial layout into handwoven rugs, transmuting its lawns, lakes, pathways and landmarks into colorfully knotted patterns.

Rendered in the language of ornamental Persian rug-making, including calculated symmetry and intricate arabesques, the carpets merge together American and Middle Eastern cultural symbols, thus invoking reflections on the aesthetics of power.

Elegant yet subversive, the carpets also speak to the politics of representation, labor, and cultural exchange. By outsourcing the production to Afghan artisans—amid rising tensions between the West and Global South—Michaeli stages a quiet act of transnational collaboration and underscores the potential of art to create unexpected forms of dialogue and transaction.

In contemplating the little-noticed connections between landscape, ornament, and geopolitics the carpets invite us to look closer—not only at the patterns we walk past or live within, but at the stories and histories they carry.