FEAST OR FAMINE

  During my visit to the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, I wandered into an exhibition that was not Georgian at all, but Azerbaijani. It was a fascinating collection called   "Towards a New Perspective on Cultural Heritage."   The exhibition marks the 10th anniversary of   Azerkhalcha , Azerbaijan's state carpet-weaving organisation. Their premise is: traditional carpets should not be locked away in museums as relics of the past. Instead, their centuries-old patterns can inspire contemporary art and modern interior design. The exhibition repeatedly returns to one theme: these aren't antiques gathering dust but a living art form that continues to evolve.   Every knot, border and geometric motif tells a story. Rather than reproducing famous carpets exactly, the designers stripped them back to their essential motifs and rebuilt them in strikingly modern ways.   I liked the carpet design inspired by the   Achma-Yumma   carpet from the Karabakh sc...