THE ARDABIL CARPET – RETURNING HOME
I was at the V+A yesterday, and visited the Islamic Middle East section now housed in the Jameel Gallery. I was looking for inspiration for the layout The Gifts within the gallery and a link with Rosa’s work, which, as I understand it, will be predominantly wall work. I was looking for a personal and conceptual link, a bridge.
I spent some time sketching large ottoman rug on the wall and remembered an idea I had many years ago when I first starting thinking about wrapping objects and what the ultimate gift between nations was in ancient cultures –The Magic Carpet. The memory came of my and my brothers feet running around the outer border of one of our red, cream and violet Persian silk rugs (I can see it from my desk here, it seems so small now and so big then). We used to pretend we were flying across the globe on all kinds of adventures, for hours on end. Later on in my teens I dreamed of flying on a needle through glass palaces…
Anyhow, back to the Jameel Gallery. I saw a group of women in Islamic dress who were being toured around the gallery by a guide who was talking of ‘4914 knots in every 10cms…one of the worlds oldest, finest and largest carpets in the world..’ . they drew aside and then a light change occurred and I saw it – an enormous rug lying in the centre of the space, within glass walls and under a mirrored canopy. I sat on one of the sofas at one end and gazed down the length of it, taking in its delicate and yet monumental beauty – quite a moment.
The idea of using this as a starting point for a floor design in Bristol, where objects would be hung or placed to create the impression of a huge carpet design came back into focus. The floral borders and a concept and structure inspired by nature took me to Rosa’s work and how this could be a connection ?
I then went to the far end of the case to get some more information on the origin of the carpet, though something in me felt it even as I approached the text : ‘The Ardabil Carpet’. Ardabil was the town closest to my mother’s village, Namin, in North-West Iran where she was born. It is said to have very possibly been made for the Sufi shrine turned Mosque in Ardabil, during the Safavid Period. Visiting that place was one of the most resonant moments of my first trip to Iran in 1992. I feel a part of me has come home in this project and anticipating where it will lead me next, like a love affair woven in silk.
