Once upon a time a River
1999
250 x 180 cm
100% handmade wool rug.
Commissioned by Foreign & Commonwealth Office for British Embassy, Moskow
Architects: Ahrens Burton & Koralek
Lijn used Russian Cyrillic fonts for the beauty of their form. She originally wanted to use the title of the popular Russian song Foreign Cities from early in the last century by the famous singer Vertinsky, but the British ambassador translated the Russian as Alien Cities, and asked me to find another word combination. Vertinsky used an ambiguous word because for him anyplace other than Russia was alien.
