Wanderjahre #2 [Journeyman Years] is the second in a series of cultural mobility projects highlighting the immigrant as a transmitter of ornaments, knowledge, and skills. This site-specific installation produced for the festival New Hamburg organized by the German national theatre in Veddel, the immigrant quarter of Hamburg. The project is a modern laptop bag that can be transformed into an Islamic prayer rug, the material of which come from reused Journeyman pants, evoking the European tradition of wandering journeyman and their role as keepers and transmitters of cultural knowledge. The bag was fabricated in the “Original Veddel,” one of the last still-working ateliers that produce traditional custom-made working gear. The project links this tradition, with its European roots, to the new generation of cultural migrants in the global context.
Concept, design, and artistic direction: Azra Akšamija
Production: Lillian Harden (prototype development), Original-Veddel R. Paulsen GmbH / Nicole Pretzlaff (sewing), Nina Softić (project coordination)
Sponsoring: Original-Veddel R. Paulsen GmbH
Wearable device
Project commissioned by the festival New Hamburg by German Theater (DeutschesSchauSpielHaus), produced for the exhibition New Hamburg Gallery in Hamburg Veddel, curated by Adnan Softić
Materials: corduroy, leather belt, belt-compass, prayer beads
Dimensions: 90 x 120 x 0.5 cm