PATCHWORK QUILT

— This quilt symbolizes a whole stratum of our family. Before, especially in Central Asia, in the East, carpets took the place of whole books, like literature. The ornamental patterns depicted family traditions and legends, and stories of wars were told through these designs. This, then, is like the modern cultural version that is kind of replacing some of traditions – it's made up of individual pieces. This is my gran's coat, my brother's sweater, my father's blazer, and bits of other material that also have stories behind them – they all have a certain aura about them — well it seems that way to me at least. My mom gave this to me as a birthday present. I'd asked her to make this special blanket for me. It's like you look at one piece and think about one thing, look at another and think about something else. But I think, as you've probably noticed, that it on the whole it looks very nice together. This is because things possess the transformed auras of their owners. A person who may no longer be alive, these things still tell us something, and can come together to harmoniously create a kind of relationship with other people's things (...) You must know, as an expert on things, that they live their own independent lives. We just have to stay in harmony with them, be sensitive to them, in order for us to be able to use them to our advantage.