A Moth in the RoomA Moth in the Room

The history of the Afghan war rug has been mythologised to appeal to Western desires and produce value in the sale of war rugs. This myth, informed by Orientalist frameworks, has shaped and reshaped the landscapes of war rug production, consumption, and representation, deploying ideological and cultural narratives that serve to anesthetize the actual suffering embedded in the production of the war rugs.

A Long Cotton Thread Soaked in Petrol and a Match is a video installation that imagines a re-telling of the story of the Afghan war rug. In this speculative enactment, historical research is combined with detective work, interviews, and internet crawling to piece together an alternative history. With the presence of a witness through a binocular viewfinder, the installation reverses the gaze on the dealers and consumers of the war rug, allowing their behaviors, fictions and words to be surveilled and studied. Screens become portals between past and present, fact and fiction.

Mila Broomberg is a designer from Tiohtià:ke/Montréal currently based in Rotterdam, NL. She has worked on projects in interior design, exhibition design and set design for studios and cultural institutions in Montréal and New York City. Her research interrogates the politics of image circulation and archiving through strategies of staging and storytelling.

Website Mila Broomberg