THE GUARDIAN
By Anna Furman
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| Ammar al-Beik - Untitled, 2017 Photograph: Robert Divers Herrick |
LONDON---In a sun-dappled chapel perched atop San Francisco’s decommissioned military base Fort Mason, the well-trodden wood floors are lined with prayer rugs. Shoeless visitors can traipse across, kneel or lay on the four-by-six wool rugs, which are kaleidoscopic in color, and neither spartan nor sumptuous in texture. Designed by 36 contemporary artists – including Chinese dissident
Ai Weiwei, Palestinian mixed-media artist
Mona Hatoum and African-American conceptualist
Hank Willis Thomas – the rugs were hand woven in Lahore, Pakistan and express shipped to California for the exhibit Sanctuary. Originally focused on artists from the six Muslim-majority countries on Trump’s travel ban, the organizers expanded the list to include artists from Botswana, Syria, Mexico, and 17 other countries. [
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| Sanctuary installation view. Photograph: Robert Divers Herrick |
