An installation view of “Illuminated Threads: Contemporary and Traditional Rugs” is at the Birmingham Museum of Art. Courtesy the Birmingham Museum of Art

It feels remarkably apt that an exhibition of rugs from the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region is staged in a gallery space that loosely echoes a mihrab—the architectural niche in mosques that points toward Mecca, the direction of Muslim prayer. “Illuminated Threads,” a permanent collection exhibition organized by the Birmingham Museum of Art, unfolds within three walls that frame a shallow recess off a larger processional corridor. This spatial arrangement lends the prayer rugs an immediate sense of sanctity and realness, inviting the viewer to trust that what is being seen is authentic—yet that trust begins to unravel under closer scrutiny.

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