MASOUD BABAKHANI, UK & Iran

A sofreh is a special type of kilim woven by the women of Iran’s nomadic Qashqai people until the end of the 20th century. It’s part of my DNA.

It wasn’t meant to adorn the floors or walls of a family home. A sofreh served a utilitarian purpose. Qashqai women made their special naan bread while sitting on it. To maintain the sofreh’s cleanliness, they wove a special sign to separate the places where they worked the dough from where they sat.

Even after my nomadic paternal grandfather began a sedentary life, my grandmother continued to weave them. I slept on them as a child when I visited their village near my home in Shiraz. I still remember their smell.

After a formal art education in Iran and Turkey, I made a disturbing discovery in the early 1990s. Sofrehs were being cut up to make women’s handbags and shoes. Their only value was seen as scrap material. I decided to save this unique cultural treasure. With the help of my father, a carpet dealer in Shiraz’s pazar, I started to collect and paint on them. They take acrylic paint very well! By transforming them into contemporary art, I want to add to their intrinsic value. (Each sofreh is more than 50 years old.)

I started painting my ‘egg series’ in 2015. The egg is a symbol of rebirth. People decorate them during both the Christian Easter and Persian Nowruz (New Year) holidays.

For me, the egg represents the oneness of humanity.

Curator’s Note:

Originating in Central Asia, the Qashqai are believed to have migrated to Iran during the 13th century at the time of the Mongol invasion. Almost all Qashqai speak Turki, a Western Turkic (Oghuz) language, as well as Farsi (Persian). Most Qashqai were originally nomadic pastoralists traveling with their flocks between highland summer and lowland winter pastures. Today they are nearly all partially or wholly sedentary. In the past, the city of Shiraz in Iran’s Fars Province was the main marketplace for their legendary textiles. The wool produced in the mountains and valleys near that city is exceptionally soft and beautiful, and takes a deeper color than wool from other parts of Iran.