Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa are bold, vibrant masterworks from his seminal series of embroidered world maps. A total of 150 were created between 1971 and 1994, the year of the artist’s death, in a variety of sizes. This particular example is especially rare, as it was among the last to be produced in Afghanistan before production moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, following the Soviet invasion in 1979.

This series has come to define Boetti’s career, encapsulating his lifelong interest in the intersections of art, politics, and global culture. Each Mappa is a striking cartographic composition that renders the world through a patchwork of national flags, each flag delineating the political borders of a nation. Begun in 1971 and continued until his death in 1994, the series offers a visual record of shifting geopolitical realities, capturing the fluid and often volatile nature of world politics. In Mappa, national boundaries appear provisional, even fragile, revealing the map itself as a site of ideological contestation – while simultaneously proposing that cultural expression can transcend such divisions.

The conceptual origin of Mappa dates back to 1969, when Boetti encountered a blank world map in an Italian school textbook. This schematic view of the globe sparked his interest and led to the creation of Planisfero Politico, a foundational work in which he coloured each country according to its national flag. This gesture transformed the map from a neutral tool into a charged artwork, rich with semiotic and political meaning. By rendering each nation through its flag, Boetti reframed the map as a symbolic space – one that invites reflection on identity, ideology, and the nature of representation itself. His work continually returns to questions of signs, signifiers, and the signified, aligning with structuralist theories of meaning and interpretation.

At the heart of Mappa lies Boetti’s fascination with cross-cultural collaboration, inseparable from the way the works were produced. His first visit to Afghanistan in March 1971 sparked a deep and enduring connection with Afghan culture. He eventually settled in Kabul and established a lasting partnership with local artisans – particularly women trained at the Royal School of Embroidery. Under Boetti’s guidance, they used the intricate bokhara stitch to execute these detailed, labour-intensive tapestries, which often took months or even years to complete. Boetti’s approach, shaped by his principle of ordine e disordine (order and disorder), embraced shared authorship and a deliberate separation between concept and execution. Each Mappa thus stands not only as a vision of the artist, but also as a living testament to the skill, heritage, and resilience of Afghan artisans.

The intricate beauty of Mappa, coupled with its conceptual depth, affirms it as a rare and enduring expression of Boetti’s belief in global networks. It is as much an archive of political history as it is a celebration of cultural exchange and creative collaboration.