Cultural / Context information for the jury

Traditional Islamic prayer mats – the jaanemaz - are about 70cm wide, and used in mosques where Muslims pray close to each other. This prayer mat demarcates a personal space to pray within that would not be disturbed or intruded upon by others. As with the rest of the world, the COVID-19 situation in Pakistan was peaking yet again in 2021. In Pakistan, where education is low, and fatalism high, it was even tougher to convince the population to follow protection guidelines such as social distancing. Especially in mosques. Our objective, especially coming up to the annual Eid religious festival that draws millions of people to pray at crowded indoor mosques, was to not only spread an awareness message of social distancing, but to provide the population with a tool that would enable them to do so.

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To build social distancing amongst mosque-visitors, we widened the individual prayer mat to 220cm with a message reminding worshippers to maintain a safe distance. This was the first time in almost a thousand years that the dimensions of the Islamic prayer mat had been altered. We launched the mat during the annual Eid festival, when millions pray at mosques. The mats were handed out across Pakistan, in some of the country's largest mosques. The design of the mat was in keeping with well-researched Islamic geometric patterns, which expanded within the space and created room for a calligraphed message in Urdu: "This distance is for your protection," serving as a reminder to not only the worshipper on the mat, but as an instruction to the next person. Printed in Islamic green, the material used was sustainable and low-cost, non-tearable paper, which could be easily rolled up.