Ancient Azerbaijani carpets get a contemporary makeover

 

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 school of weaving. Instead of filling every inch with elaborate decoration, the modern version uses bold geometric framing and scatters floral motifs against a dramatic black background. It is both ancient and minimalist.

 

Another reinterpretation draws upon the celebrated Bandi-Rumi composition. The original is a richly decorated carpet, but the contemporary version is transformed into a repeating geometric pattern.

 

Perhaps the most intriguing is the Pazyryk design. The original Pazyryk carpet, dating back around 2,500 years, is widely regarded as the world's oldest surviving pile carpet. Preserved in Siberian permafrost, it predates most of the world's famous woven masterpieces. Rather than copying it directly, the designers extracted its central decorative elements into an architectural composition.

 

The Nakhchivan reinterpretation follows a similar philosophy, distilling traditional floral and ornamental motifs into a balanced contemporary design.

 

It was interesting seeing the modern designs displayed alongside photographs of the traditional carpets that inspired them. Sometimes the connection was obvious and sometimes it took several minutes to see a border pattern, floral motif, or central medallion in the contemporary version.

 

The carpets show thousands upon thousands of knots, each tied by hand. No wonder UNESCO recognises Azerbaijani carpet weaving as part of the world's Intangible Cultural Heritage.

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MARTINA NICOLLS

MARTINA NICOLLS is an Australian author and international human rights-based consultant in foreign aid evaluations and audits, education, psychosocial support, resilience, peace and stabilization, and communication, including script writing. She lives in Paris. Her latest books are: If Paris Were My Lover (2025), Tranquility Mapping (2025), Moon, Mood, and Mind Mapping Tracker (2025), and Innovations within Constraints Handbook (2025). She is the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009). 

 

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