32 X 32 X 32 cm

2023

Leather, Persian carpet

RFC Homeland is a poetic fusion of identity, play, and heritage. This ball, an icon of collective sports experience, is reimagined here with panels of Persian carpet — a textile deeply rooted in cultural tradition and craftsmanship.

The ball radiates vitality, which stands in stark contrast to the slow domesticity of the Persian carpet. Both objects — the ball and the carpet — are autonomous and recognizable, yet together they cancel each other’s function. The ball becomes unplayable, the carpet unusable. In their collision, a tension arises in which utility gives way to meaning. These objects become extras in their own narrative, evoking something new: a kind of aesthetic no man’s land.

Brian Eno once said that art is not interesting as an object, but as a trigger for feeling or experience. RFC Homeland aligns with that notion. The sight of this ball provokes a sense of both humor and depth — a smile, followed by reflection. The work offers a playful yet layered symbiosis between two ancient expressions of human creativity: the Persian carpet as one of the earliest forms of applied art, and football as the universal, popular game that connects cultures.

The title, RFC Homeland, plays with the language of clubs and questions of identity. RFC — often read as “Royal Football Club” — takes on a broader meaning here: Rug-Football-Culture. The work raises questions about cultural integration, heritage, and the tension between origin and destination. What do we preserve in a world where borders blur, but the longing for connection remains?

With RFC Homeland, Schscht invites the viewer to consider the ball as more than an object of play — as a carrier of stories, identity, and paradox/memory.

© Schscht