ALONG A STRIP OF CARPET

In the history of the culture of every people there is a field of art in which its rich spiritual world, the fundamental traits of character embodied in it and inherent to it, the intellect, view of the world, aesthetics and philosophy of life are reflected. Carpet making is this form of art for the Azerbaijani people. The carpet is not only an everyday object, but it is one of the main forms of artistic self-expression. You can see this for yourself, when you visit the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum which recently celebrated a house-warming. The fact that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva took part in the ceremony is evidence of the great significance to Azerbaijan of the opening of the new building.

"We treasure our carpets, our carpet-weaving art. The relevant law has been passed on preserving and developing Azerbaijani carpets. It is our great merit and naturally we should strive to ensure that the younger generation shows an interest in this art form. We should promote it," President Ilham Aliyev stated at the opening of the new building of the museum.

The director of the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, Professor Roya TAGIYEVA,  PhD (Art Criticism), spoke to Regionplus about the valuable exhibits at the museum, the prospects for its development and the priorities.

- Please tell us about the museum's new building. To what extent is it fit for purpose and convenient?

- After the law "On the preservation and development of the Azerbaijani carpet" was passed in 2004, the government of Azerbaijan precisely defined the manner in which this national type of art should be supported and developed. One of the state measures to preserve and develop the Azerbaijan carpet was providing the museum with a new building, the foundation stone of which was laid in 2008. The shape of the building is that of a carpet being unrolled. The length of the new museum is 121 metres, the width 22 metres and the height 18 metres.It occupies an overall area of approximately 18,500 square metres. The museum's exhibits consist of carpets on three floors, and in the basement you can see a collection of incredibly beautiful jewellery. The museum's stocks are housed here in state-of-the-art store-rooms equipped with the latest technology. The building has cutting-edge multi-media equipment installed, burglar alarms, a workshop for repairing and restoring the carpets, a library, a souvenir shop and also presentation rooms. The new Carpet Museum promises to be not only one of the major museums of this type in the world, but also an extremely important sight to be visited in Azerbaijan.

The shape of the building envisages a completely extraordinary interpretation of a museum building itself, as well as of the exhibition surfaces. For the first time in the world the carpets are exhibited on the elliptical-like walls of the interior of the premises. Taking into account the historical importance of the carpet and the role of the upgraded museum in the cultural life of Azerbaijan, the quality of its displays is in keeping with the highest international standards.

- What has been done over the entire period of the Carpet Museum's existence? We would like to hear about the Museum's attainments and successes.

- The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, which was founded in 1967, was a specialised museum aimed at demonstrating the art of carpet making. Right from the very start the museum became the main specialised centre for the study and promotion of Azerbaijani carpets and local weaving traditions. This work was done on an international level. Over the time that it has been operating the museum has held exhibitions in more than 30 countries. In order to make people abroad aware of  the carpets, the museum's collection has been exhibited in France, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, India, Japan, Israel, Great Britain and many other countries. 

As it is a scientific centre, our museum has also taken part in organising several major international events - symposiums on oriental and Azerbaijani carpets, the first of which took place in Baku in 1983 under the aegis of UNESCO ("The Art of the Oriental Carpet"). Subsequent symposiums: "The Art of the Azerbaijani Carpet" (1988), "Azerbaijani Carpets and Applied Folk Art" (2003) and "The Art of the Azerbaijani Carpet" timed to coincide with the birth centenary of Latif Karimov (Paris, UNESCO headquarters, 2007), also attracted the attention of specialists in this field from all over the world. A number of conferences dedicated to the preservation of the cultural heritage and museum management have been organised throughout the work of the museum, in partnership with such international organisations as UNESCO, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Council of Museums.

- How many exhibits do you have in your museumat thepresent time?

- The Carpet Museum has concentrated in it all the wealth and variety of Azerbaijani folk art. It has the biggest collection of Azerbaijani carpets and items of decorative applied art in the world. At the present time the museum houses approximately 15,000 objets d'art. The main part of the collection is made up of pile carpets and kilims of which there are more than 6,000, but we also have traditional costumes, jewellery, brass utensils and so forth here.

- We would like to hear about the oldest and most interesting exhibits in the museum. How did you come by them and why are they unique?

As a result of the dynamic activity in collecting, recording, preserving and making a scientific study of the carpets, our museum has become a treasure-house of Azerbaijani national culture. A big collection has been put together following numerous scientific research expeditions to all the regions of Azerbaijan as well as on the basis of painstaking work to acquire carpets and items of applied folk art from the population.

One of the main exhibits to be viewed in the exhibition is the oldest carpet in the collection, the 17th-century "Dragon" carpet from Nagornyy Karabakh. In 2013 the museum organised a carpet tour of Azerbaijan for collectors from Europe and America. Among the participants was Mrs Beverly Shiltz from the USA, who in memory of her late husband, Grover Shiltz, a collector of carpets and member of the Chicago Oriental Rug and Textile Society, presented the museum with this "Dragon" carpet and also the 19th-century Sirvan "Salyan Hilasi" carpet. At auction this carpet can cost as much as hundreds of thousands dollars.

- Do you have modern carpets on display at your museum?

- The turn of the century in the year 2000 changed many things in life in Azerbaijan from a cultural, historical, philosophical and religious point of view. But the Azerbaijani carpet traditions have continued to develop in the work of artists like Latif Karimov, Kamil Aliyev, Eldar Mikayilzada, Mammadhuseyn Huseynov, Latifa Qarayeva, Cafar Mucri, Aydin Racabov, Qulam Babai and others. One of the new trends in this art is the works by the well-known artist Tahir Salahov, whose work has been remodelled and woven into carpets, which you can see in our exhibition.

- In Europe Azerbaijani carpets are regarded as Caucasian carpets. What do you think needs to be done for our carpets to be perceived as Azerbaijani carpets?

- We need to be energetic in pursuing a policy promoting Azerbaijan's art. The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation are doing a lot of work to this end, organising exhibitions of Azerbaijani carpets in European countries every year. One of the tangible achievements in this work is that the traditional art of Azerbaijani carpet making was entered on the representative UNESCO list of Mankind's Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010. All this is the result of the work of our museum and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The registration of Azerbaijani carpets on the list hashelped to further Azerbaijan's many-year-long policy of integrating our national cultural heritage into the world cultural space and to encourage a dialogue based on cultural exchanges and mutual understanding among peoples. This event has not only made it easier to show how important the carpet art - the pearl of Azerbaijan's national culture - is in mankind's heritage, but facilitated the traditions of the folk art of Azerbaijani carpet making so that they could be passed down to future generations.

- What in your view is the destiny of museums? What role do they play in the modern world?

It is obvious that the most important task of the museum is to preserve mankind's cultural heritage for future generations. But the traditional functions of the museum - storing, studying and educating - are interpreted in a broader sense in contemporary theory and practice. They are also depositories, in which outstanding works are housed, an information centre where a variety of knowledge about heritage is concentrated, an educational institution revealing the history of the heritage as part of national history and a centre for preserving the skills needed in professional crafts and traditions. Incidentally, to reply to your question about preserving the cultural heritage for mankind: in our museum there is an educational centre  where visitors can be told about the history of carpets and the special features of folk applied art, about the main schools of carpet making and weaving techniques. Besides this, our museum also offers a wide range of educational programmes aimed at various interest levels. Among them there are carpet making clubs, seminars, children's and family programmes.

- What do you see as the aims of the carpet museum, what are the priorities in its work?

The Carpet Museum is making use of the historical potential of its collections to preserve and develop the traditional culture of carpets, and to ensure that it becomes part of Azerbaijan's contemporary culture. In our museum, the carpet is regarded in a broad cultural context, closely associated with other elements of the traditional way of life. Besides the building up of collections of carpets, the museum pays great attention to the intangible heritage linked to carpets and carpet weaving, including the legends, traditions, customs, traditional and modern ideas about the language and aesthetics of the carpet, as well as the secrets of the professional mastery of carpet makers. A comprehensive understanding of carpets, as an inseparable part of the national tradition and way of life forms the basis of the museum's educational work. Since the carpet is an important element not only in the national, but also in the world's heritage, the museum is developing partnership ties with specialists, museums and organisations in other countries, which are conducting similar work.

- Please tell us something about the museum's future plans.

- Besides our exhibition activity, the Carpet Museum will go on developing its educational centre in the future. Projects are to be drawn up for informing visitors and tourists about the history and special features of Azerbaijan's applied folk art, the schools of carpet weaving and the weaving techniques. The programmes will include master classes to acquaint visitors with the secrets of the carpet - the colour, the technique, the weaving and the patterns. Visitors will even be able to try carpet weaving for themselves. One of the aims in this direction is to continue the work of reviving lost traditional techniques of weaving and dyeing, the creation of exclusive copies of carpets in the collection of the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum.