Mediterranean Queendoms

Our contribution to the 18th Venice Biennale is based upon the diasporic history of Meriem Chabani’s Algerian family, mapping a territory defined by interconnected domestic spaces. Our “Queendoms” are domestic spaces ruled over by women, who care for, maintain and transmit resources, values, presents, medical care, family objects, furniture… from one home to another, across the sea.

The carpet is the support and herald of this dominion, showing its spaces, its functions, the intimate and powerful elements that instil within it its force and its role as a continuous space that supports the Algerian diaspora. The carpet is unfurled, for warmth, for comfort, for prayer. The carpet makes home.

The carpet highlights the dominion of the women of Meriem’s family, delimiting a domain that spreads in a spatial continuity across continents.

The visual aesthetic of the carpet contains three elements:
– A mediterranean landscape: the climatic and historical context of the Queendom, influencing its spatial form and its contents in numerous ways
– A domestic space: a domestic interior within which the domain is elaborated through a practice of care
– A heraldic register: a symbolic celebration of elements that give the Queendom its specificity.