Pavel Brăila presents his Magic Carpet (drone, carpet, 2019) in the group exhibition After the Canal there was only ”our” world, at Mestna galerija/City Art Gallery of Ljubljana (19 September – 10 November 2019).

A flying carpet evokes an atmosphere of One Thousand and One Nights and the possibility of free travel, powered only by desire. Today, people from the lands of these old stories are increasingly confined to the limits of their shuttered territories. Their dreams end at the borders or end up at the bottom of the sea. What if we could transform a tool of technological surveillance into a tool of liberation and rescue?

The exhibition After the Canal there was only ”our” world (curator: Raluca Voinea in collaboration with Ovidiu Țichindeleanu) explores historical and geographical connections between Europe and the Middle East, with Suez Canal as the trigger.

The issues rippling from the opening of the Canal in 1869 are as relevant today as they were at different moments throughout the last 150 years: Orientalism, migration, refugees, natural resources, ecosystems changed by human intervention, etc.

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Image: Pavel Brăila, Magic Carpet, in the exhibition After the Canal there was only “our” world, City Art Gallery Ljubljana, 2019, installation view, photo: Andrej Peunik/MGML