Lost Art Project: April 2014

Carpet-weaving is undoubtedly one of the most distinguished manifestations of Persian culture and art. The earliest of these carpets date back some 2500 years, and documented evidence of their existence can be found in Chinese manuscripts dating back to the 3rd to 7th centuries A.D. These carpets play a huge role in Iranian lives – children learn to crawl and walk on them. They play, study, eat, sleep, and are married on the carpets. And like the carpet, our lives come to thread through one another, bridging distant and disparate stories into a magnificent tapestry.

As the diaspora has spread, so too has the carpet. The Iranian identity of the carpet has spread and become more deeply woven into the identity of the world, and identities of the Iranian and other cultures have lost their previous meaning. The Red Carpet by Shaghayegh Cyrous examines what people do with this Lost identity, as distant cultures become one.

UNITY AND PEACE