The Carpet as Language
Artist Faig Ahmed transforms the visual language of carpets into contemporary sculptural works of art.
By Charles Shafaieh
The Pazyryk carpet, woven roughly 2500 years ago, was discovered in the tomb of a Scythian prince in Siberia’s Altai Mountains. The world’s oldest known rug, it was hand-knotted using techniques identical to those practiced today by carpet weavers in villages in Azerbaijan and Iran, where many experts believe the carpet was made. Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed feels this millennia-old craft, passed down from mothers to daughters, must be celebrated. But he also relishes its subversion.
Ahmed, who lives and works in Baku, employs these same communities of weavers to craft carpets that appear as if in permanent flux. One rug looks fluid, the highly structured pattern dissolving midway into an asymmetric, technicolor pool of fabric. Another looks as if it is in the process of being torn by an invisible giant, its gaping holes mysteriously distorting the design too. Others evoke the sheep who yield the yarn as the rugs seem to disintegrate into massive tufts of monochromatic wool which burst from the wall—a dreamlike illustration of both cause and effect, source and product, that is simultaneously kinetic and frozen.
Carpets are not Ahmed’s primary focus however, but rather a means to probe profound questions about humanity. “The carpet is a language and one of the strongest objects of culture, especially in my region,” he explains. Its patterns, he says, are inherited across generations and continue to entrance us because they reflect deep-seated aspects of our psyches. “It gives access to the collective subconscious. The recognisable catches you, and if you can keep hold of this, you can flow from the known to the unknown, from the recognisable to the unrecognisable.”
Consciousness in Flux, Ahmed’s exhibition at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, on view until August 1, continues his investigation of universal patterns as well as engages his lifelong obsession with science. While so much contemporary art that employs science gives the latter supremacy, such as AI-generated works, Ahmed wants the two fields to exist as equal players. In collaboration with neuroscientists and software engineers who work with medical instruments, he will invite visitors to look at art while collecting data such as eye and face tracking. Others will have their brain activity and pulses monitored. Whether particular elements of a painting or carpet elicit fear or a positive reaction, like love, are among the questions his experiment asks. Once the data patterns are gathered and analysed, Ahmed will create a work of art inspired by these objective readings. “Art is a social phenomenon,” he says. “And what I am hunting for is inside the human brain.”
Big Emptiness (2021) is part of Faig Ahmed’s exhibition, Consciousness in Flux, at Sharjah’s Maraya Art Centre until August 1.
Photo courtesy of Faig Ahmed Studio
