Ammar al-Beik’s untitled design for Sanctuary is a brash critique of US President Donald Trump and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. “A carpet is a free space to create symbols that haunt us,” he says. “When [carpets are] lined up side by side in houses of worship, [their] energy is magnified. They deliver messages of love, and often of pain and loneliness.” The word animal appears in both Arabic and English, borrowing Trump’s much-publicized criticism of Al-Assad to label both leaders; a chemical weapon hovers overhead “like mistletoe leading to a toxic kiss.” “This is my first carpet—my political manifesto, my summary of confusion—but it will not be the last,” al-Beik asserts. “There will be another: a manifesto of love, a magical carpet beyond the limits of time.”
