A Story of Islamic Embroidery in Nomadic and Urban Traditions brings together more than 200 textiles from Islamic lands, including a wealth of embroideries from Central Asia. These types of textiles have never before been exhibited in the Gulf region. The exhibition aims to give visitors the chance to explore the exchange of trade and culture across the Silk Road and beyond.
These artefacts, with their kaleidoscope of motifs and colours, create a form of abstract art and testify to the role of Islamic women in creating an artistic tradition ofgreat cultural significance as well as beauty. The works on view are embroidered garments and decorative objects that illustrate how the ancient skills and tradition of embroidery, carried on by urban, rural and nomadic women, sustained regional, tribal and family identities through its integration in communal activities, and how these skills evolved through encounters with different cultures, brought about by trade. The geographical area concerned in this exhibition reaches from Pakistan in the East to Morocco to the west, bringing together more than 200 textiles, including a wealth of embroideries from Central Asia, the hub of trade routes from ancient times. By tracing these routes and cultures through embroidery, the exhibition explores the exchange of trade and culture across the Silk Road. Silk Road trade brought great wealth to Central Asia, with textile production a major industry. Influences from other countries are also explored in the exhibition, for example, the Andalusians influenced textile-makers in Morocco, whilst the Ottomans influenced artists in Algeria, and all across Central Asia there was continual interchange among Mongols, Uzbeks, Pashtuns, Tajiks and Turkmen.
In order to makethese historical and cultural links easier to grasp, the embroideries areordered around two axes. The first is the organisation of embroideries byregion and the communities where they were produced to see the way embroideriesare informed and determined by their cultural setting. Social hierarchy inCentral Asia was more fluid and consequently power more diffused, which meantthat even sophisticated commercial textile processes involved input from craftsmen at different stages, making the process closer to a dialogue betweencraftsmen rather than a factory production. However, in Iran the Rasht embroideries displayed in the exhibitionreveal a closely controlled production process with clear divisions of powerand responsibility. The other axis follows the theme of embroidery in nomadicand urban settings. The pieces from these nomadic communities in Central Asiatend to be inspired by nature – alive with scorpions and rams – and the animalsthat were surrounding the tribes. Following a similar logic, urban textilespresent the viewer with designs geared towards the more domesticated world ofthe city garden and beautiful floral patterns.
These urbanembroideries also take us to Morocco where the symbioses of several externaland internal influences have contributed to create patterns typical of urbanMorocco whilst retaining the original imprint of Muslim Spain. Each textile isthus the result of the conflicting influence of Arabic art, known for itsinterlacing and interpenetrating patterns, and the rectilinear and vigorouslygeometric Berber art.
Many types oftextiles fuelled the bustling trade of the region’s bazaars and filled thecaravanserai that traversed the desert from Central Asia to Russia, Turkey andbeyond.They defined the wearer’s social status – from the ruler’s magnificentgold-embroidered velvet robes to the labourer’s striped cotton and the nomad’splain wool garments.The creation and use of textiles also marked the mostjoyous and poignant events of family life: from the rites of birth and marriageto those of burial.
Most of thematerials in the exhibition were made by women specifically for their familiesand for members of their communities. For this reason, the Central Asianexamples are particularly compelling, since Islamic identity in these countrieswas strongly discouraged, for many decades, and embroidery gatherings providedwomen with a rare opportunity for Islamic worship.
In Central Asia,traditionally embroidered textiles were done by women, such as suzanis.These family textiles were created for use within the community and ascommodities to be sold. Often a suzani was left unfinished by one generation soit could be used as a teaching tool for the next generation of femaleembroiderers – a way of passing down the skills and stitches. These type of textileswere created alongside the famous Central Asian ikats,which had become more widespread from the early 19th century until the firstdecade of the 20th century with Bukhara, one of the most ancient cities ofUzbekistan, a centre for the various workshops for weavers, dyers, designers,as well as the wealthy upper classes who could afford the textiles. The citywas also a centre for the gold embroidery industry, where the embroiderers(exclusively men) were organised into guilds. This type of heavy and intricategold embroidery was in great demand in the courts of the Khans and oftenincluded added embellishment with precious and semi-precious stones, as well asdiamonds, emeralds, pearls and sapphires. The masters of Bukhara used two basicmethods of embroidery: zarduzi-za-minduzi(entirely covering the fabric)and- zarduzi-gul-duzi (sewing flower designs to a cut-out pattern).When using the ‘zaminduzi’ method, the entire surface is embroidered. Thiscreates the impression that the master has made a lavishly designed texture offabric and not a decorative pattern. The stitches used form diverse patterns,with many ancient techniques and classical stitches surviving to this day. Anexample of this type of embroidery can be seen in the pair of men’s boots inthis exhibition. Other cities that practised the art of gold embroidery wereSamarkand and Herat.
Some of the mostvalued textiles produced were of silk, the next most valued a mix of silk andcotton. While silk production was for centuries the closely guarded secret ofChina, by the 19th century, Central Asian workshops could also produce silk –and enhance the finished object with embroidery.
Traditional women’scostume is one of the most important ways in which tribal and communityidentity are expressed in Central Asia and its environs. In the Turkomancommunity, the women of each sub-tribe wore clearly recognisable, distinctivecostumes and jewellery during each stage of their life. At adolescence, youngTurkoman girls exchanged their simple shift dresses and flat caps for moreelaborate robes with embroidered trim and high-domed hats tufted with silverand feathers. As young brides, they wore high headdresses decorated with silkscarves and massive silver ornaments, topped off with heavy, cape-like silkover-robes covered with embroidery. The highly abstracted floral patterns ofthe robes represented tulips, a symbol of fecundity. Very young Turkomanchildren also wore a special bib-like garment called an elek, whichprotected them from the evil eye and helped them to grow strong, healthy, andwise.
Women’s dresses fromthe Mangal Pashtun, Swat and Kohistan regions of eastern Afghanistan and thePakistan borderlands were also an important means of expressing tribalidentity. In contrast, men in these communities quickly adopted aspects ofWestern costume, wearing vests and suit jackets with the traditional long,cotton shirt and baggy pants. Dresses from the nearby, but more urbanised SwatValley, were embroidered on a similar black background, but have a much morestandard shift-dress design. This form of dress relies on technical virtuosityof the silk embroidery for effect. The colourful Mangal Pashtun dresses withwide, gathered skirts and bright, embroidered bodices were often decorated bysewing on bright metal jewellery and coins.Although famous as warriors, thePashtun have a lengthy tradition of herding and raising camels and sheep. Thetime of moving flocks is often when marriages were arranged and young womentried to look their best.
One of the areas ofthe exhibition is devoted to the steppes peoples and their passion for horses.The Lakai and Kungrat Uzbeks are believed to originate in the Dasht-i-Kipchaksteppe, now part of Kazakhstan. They were warriors and steppe pastoralists whoformed part of the Golden Horde under Ghengis Khan’s son Jochi, and embracedIslam in the 14th century under the leadership of Uzbek Khan. As followers ofMohammad Shaibani, founder of the Shaibanid dynasty, they were among the Uzbektribes that united to conquer the Timurid Empire and establish Uzbek suzeraintyover much of southern Central Asia.
Both the Lakai andKungrat tribes have maintained a distinct historical and cultural identity asUzbek sub-tribes. They remained pastoralist herders, moving seasonally tomountain pastures with their sheep and horse herds. Even today, when virtuallyall Lakai and Kungrat live in settled communities, they have preserved manynomadic-based traditions.
The Lakai stronglyvalue their warrior past. The Lakai ideal is of a man who is a cinchi, aspiritually endowed, skilled master-of-horses as well as a warrior. Becausemanhood is closely identified with the tradition of the hero on horseback whodefends tribe and tradition, horse culture and the making of elaborate horse decorationsare important in many ceremonies.
The horse-covers inthe exhibition were prepared for celebrations of the passage of youths toadulthood. They were embroidered by women of the community and given by afather to his son. Often a horse and its accoutrements were presented to ayoung man after a game of buzkashi, or oglak-chakmog, literally ‘pulling-the-goat’. This wild, unrulygame is played by as many as 100 riders on highly trained horses. The horsemenstrive with each other to secure a large goat or sheep’s carcass and ride to adistant goal and back, holding itunder a thigh and beating off opponents with their whips.
Horse covers made byLakai and other nomadic Uzbek tribes often feature highly abstracted, electricrenditions of single and double-tailed scorpions embroidered in silk on a woolground. Such powerful, even threatening images drawn from the natural world arecharacteristic themes of Lakai ornamentation and reminiscent of the energy andhigh degree of abstraction found in the early animal-style art of the steppe.
This comprehensiveexhibition extends over 10 rooms, moving from an introduction to Islamicembroidery through the steppes of Centra Asia and its nomadic peoples, toPakistan and Iran before moving west to Algeria and finally on to Tetuan, theformer Spanish Protectorate of Morocco and modern Morocco. A journey ofdiscovery through Central Asia.
The exhibition ispart of a programme of artistic and educational programming organised by TDICleading up to the opening of the Cultural District museums.Embroidery and otherArabic traditions will be represented in the collections of the Saadiyat Islandmuseums, including the Zayed National Museum, Louvre Abu Dhabi and GuggenheimAbu Dhabi, all of which will showcase international arts, as well as theregion’s heritage.
Until 28 July 2010 in Gallery One at Emirates Palace, AbuDhabi.The exhibition was curated by Isabelle Denamur, textile researcher,ethnologist and the author of Islamic Embroidery in Urban and NomadicTradition, who has also written the catalogue for the show, along with KateFitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale, who have written extensively on the arts ofCentral Asia. A series of educational programmes, including musical concerts,lectures, and hands-on workshops accompany the exhibition.
