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What if this fragment is not simply what is left of an artwork — but a window into what was lost?
I chose Fragment with a Garden Scene, an early 17th-century Iranian textile from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, because I was drawn to the contrast between its physical fragility and the abundance of life it has preserved for more than four centuries. Although only a fragment survives, its musicians, flowers, plants, silk and metal-wrapped threads still hold the memory of an idealized garden.
That contrast became the starting point for What the Garden Remembers.
Using FLORA, I imagined the fragment moving through time. The project begins with the original artifact and expands its woven imagery into a speculative garden. As the world around it becomes increasingly fragile and architecture begins to decay, the textile survives. Its metallic threads gradually become roots, allowing the garden once represented on its surface to cross into the physical world.
Rather than attempting to reconstruct what originally existed beyond the fragment, I wanted to explore what cultural objects can carry forward when the worlds that created them change or disappear. The original textile remains visible throughout the process, becoming the anchor connecting past, present and future.
Empires disappear. Borders change. Buildings fall. The garden remembers.
Original artwork: Fragment with a Garden Scene
Attributed to Iran, early 17th century
Silk and metal-wrapped thread; lampas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Public Domain / Open Access
Original artwork link:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/445260
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