Hello,

My name is Andrey Budko, I'm a product designer from Moscow.

My product is a carpet, which is made of felt with machine embroidery (there is an over 1 000 000 stitches). Carpet comes in three different variations (color ways) that highlight different parts of the ornament with different colors (magenta, yellow, blue). The size of the carpet is 140 by 200 cm, and it's about 6 mm thick.

The material and techniques used for this carpet are very traditional for slavic. Felt was commonly used in shoe-making industry for winter shoes called "valenki", and embroiding is a very traditional Slavic craft dating way back in history. Combined together in a form of carpet, it becomes a tribute to the children's memory of those who were born in 70's and 80's. Carpet was the most common interior item seen in every single Soviet household. Factories in USSR were producing millions and millions of oriental-style looking carpets a year, and they were not a great quality or price. But still it was perceived as an item of affordable luxury and therefore was hanging on the wall, as to be kept intact and seen. Most children's memory contains a carpet as an imagination playground, where in lines and ornaments they will find their own stories and dreams. Little fingers were following different lines of complicated or intricate patterns and finding simpler, familiar shapes and images. Highlighting different parts of the same ornament in different versions of the same carpet, I tried to pay attention to this common and mutual memory of my generation.