<\/p>\n
Jelena Sofronijevic<\/h4>\n
<\/p>\n
War rugs are aptly named, for both their content and context. Handwoven with motifs of guns, tanks, and military maps, they depict real military interventions into everyday life. These textiles are mainly produced by women of the Baluch (Baloch) and Turkoman (Turkmen) tribes, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities whose ancestral lands cross the borders of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.<\/span><\/p>\n But even then, \u201cwe can\u2019t say where these come from.\u201d says Zeina Klink-Hoppe, curator of the British Museum\u2019s exhibition, <\/span>War Rugs: Afghanistan\u2019s Knotted History<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> of \u2014 nominally <\/span>\u2014 <\/span><\/i>\u201cAfghan\u201d<\/span> war rugs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Although Kabul and Kunduz have been important centers for luxury textile production, the curator points to the textile central to the display: \u201cThe colors are Baluch, but the patterns are central Asian.\u201d They recall the bold ikats now more often associated with Uzbekistan. Bukhara and Samarkand, the first capitol of the Timurid empire, were also key areas of carpet production. In many ways the <\/span>War Rugs<\/span><\/i> exhibition alludes to \u201cshared traditions that cross the borders of space and time, entanglements revisited by a number of contemporary artists from the region and its diasporas,” including the Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican visual artist<\/span> Alia Farid<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n In \u201c<\/span>An Introduction to War Rugs<\/span><\/a>,\u201d the Jameel Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum <\/span>Rachel Dedman<\/span><\/a> has written that, \u201cA war rug may be an expression of resistance, a market-driven souvenir, and a reflection of political change.\u201d She goes on to note, \u201cAlthough motifs of military vehicles appeared in their weavings as early as the 1930s, war rugs as we know them today were mostly made from the 1970s onwards; the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was one clear catalyst.\u201d Primarily produced for personal use, in the home, they were soon made and sold to initially Soviet tourists \u2014 and later the Americans, with the arrival of US military forces following 9\/11.<\/span><\/p>\n Klink-Hoppe, the British Museum\u2019s<\/span> curator of the modern Middle East,<\/span> highlights how war rugs are also a \u201cEuropean product,\u201d first mass produced in Hamburg, Germany, and patronized by collectors from Italy. Now rugs are exported from Peshawar, with dealers working across borders in the region. Textile historian and dealer John Gillow, from whom the Museum has purchased close to 700 objects, collected many in travels through Afghanistan and Pakistan.<\/span><\/p>\n Central image of Afghan soldier attacking a Russian soldier portrayed like other Russian soldiers as horned demons or \u201cdivs\u201d in Persian, in the style of traditional miniature paintings from the Shahnameh (Book of Kings), 1980\u20131989. Textile and wool, 158 x 101 cm. \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div> Often called a \u201cWar on Terror\u201d; \u201cAlliance\u201d; or \u201cTora Bora\u201d rug, two jet planes with laser guided missiles prepare to take military action, with other fighter jets including an F-16, against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in the Tora Bora caves, in Eastern Afghanistan, 2002. Textile and wool, 82 x 61.50 cm. \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> The changes in consumer tastes and designs have been explored by the art historian<\/span> Nigel Lendon<\/span><\/a>, who describes these works as \u201c<\/span>the highest tradition of war art in the 20<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0 century.\u201d<\/span> Yet, according to Dedman, there remains a lack of research undertaken from the perspective of the \u2014 predominantly women \u2014 weavers and makers, many of whom are forced to work in exploitative, factory-like conditions to meet market demand.<\/span><\/p>\n These shifts are visible in the textiles themselves in the <\/span>War Rugs<\/span><\/i> exhibition. Conflict and internal displacement encouraged the movement of weaving from the home, with the family, into workshops, and refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A plurality of styles \u2014 from knotted rugs with tufted piles, to unknotted, flatweaves, and decorated goat skulls \u2014 are pulled out, to further reveal pluralities of patterns and motifs. There is movement from horizontal to vertical weaves, with larger working spaces, and the amalgamation of regional particularities, as women from different backgrounds mix and socialize.<\/span><\/p>\n Rugs often reference existing places, including the <\/span>Blue Mosque at Mazar-e-Sharif<\/span><\/a>, and everyday objects drawn from the home, such as teapots. Some of these rugs feature Cyrillic (Russian) languages, others, the word \u201cAfghanistan\u201d written in reverse, which Klink-Hoppe highlights as evidence of the illiteracy of many of their makers. By the final case, devoted to \u201cSouvenirs and Western Demand\u201d English appears more frequently.<\/span><\/p>\n Crucially, this is an exhibition that, as much as possible, communicates to the museum\u2019s publics the perspectives and experiences of the object makers. The \u201cnative language\u201d comes first in the captions. In the context of these perverse, parallel \u201cbooms\u201d in the machinery of war and textile production, Klink-Hoppe is more concerned with the technology of the latter. The display features tools connected to carpet making, collected in the 1970s, as well as archive photographs, exposing the process of making. Though woven flat, the curators here hang the works for display \u2014 with industry-standard velcro. Another convention of Western\/European institutional display \u2014 that unfortunately persists \u2014 is their trapping behind glass, denying publics the opportunity to see their backs.<\/span><\/p>\n War Rugs <\/span><\/i>nevertheless enacts a subtle shift in focus, and gaze, from the fetishization of conflicts elsewhere. For curator Klink-Hoppe, a central concern was how to provide basic, accessible context \u2014 in <\/span>an institution that restricts the length of labels to 100 words for introductions, and 60 words per object<\/span><\/a> \u2014 about a region so diverse, yet often reduced to singular stereotypes of the \u201cMiddle East,\u201d particularly concerning gender and religion.<\/span><\/p>\n The exhibition starts with a display on \u201cdesire,\u201d not by or for women, but <\/span>for<\/span><\/i> natural resources, represented by inscribed seals, amulets, and cameos, made of minerals like lapis lazuli, garnet, and glass. These objects reflect Afghanistan\u2019s own fragile, strategic position, a long held \u201cprize in the 19th century \u201c<\/span>Great Game\u201d<\/span><\/a> for land and power.<\/span><\/p>\n Lesser displayed miniature paintings likewise reflect shared cultural forms and, specifically, the significance of Buddhism in the region. Representations of the Buddhas of Bamyan in the 19th century are placed in conversation with contemporary responses by the artist Khadim Ali. He laments the recent destruction of cultural heritage by the Taliban, shared from his perspective as a Hazara, a mostly Shi\u2019a Muslim ethnic group in a predominantly Sunni Afghan state.<\/span><\/p>\n Subtle nods to patronage and collections \u2014 often, women\u2019s \u2014 likewise collapse the boundaries of time. From these early representations of \u201cBameean,\u201d donated by Miss M. W. MacEwen in the 1970s, the exhibition moves to Timurid tiles bequeathed by Miss Edith Godman. They are the remains of grand public architectures,<\/span> crafted and constructed by foreign hands<\/span><\/a>, commissioned by chief consort Gawharshad and \u201cher husband, emperor Shahrukh, in the 15th century.<\/span><\/p>\n More fragments from their mostly demolished Musalla, a multipurpose complex of academic and religious study, are respectfully nestled in a nearby case. (Gawharshad remains, though, best known for her eponymous, double-layered domed <\/span>mosque at Mashhad<\/span><\/a> in Iran, restored following Russian bombing in 1911, and the rebellion against Reza Shah in 1935.)<\/span><\/p>\n Woven Afghan war rug with a repeating pattern of an abstract floral design and four blue helicopters on a peach background, 1980-1990. Textile and wool, 207 x 99 cm. \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div> Also known as an \u201cExit,\u201d \u201cProtest,\u201d or \u201cMujahideen\u201d rug, this Afghan war rug depicts the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. On the rug\u2019s lower third: types of anti-aircraft guns, including a \u201cDASHAKA,\u201d a 12.7mm M1938 DshKM heavy machine gun, and \u201cZIGORK,\u201d a 14.5 ZGU-1 air defence weapon, 1989-2000. Textile, wool and cotton, 94 x 63 cm. \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> Some of the region\u2019s reserves of gold, silver, copper, and rare metals \u2014 extracted and exported by the Mujahideen, to finance their resistance to Soviet occupation \u2014 might well have ended up in the same arms and weapons that proliferate in the region, and in these rugs. Poppies, a recurring floral motif, have a similarly destructive meaning. Woven into these textiles is thus the double destruction of the land \u2014 from below and above.<\/span><\/p>\n Revisiting specific places, as bedrocks beneath shifting political empires and dynasties, makes for more accessible history telling. Long before we as viewers encounter Herat\u2019s kilim rugs, or its role as the late Timurid capital, the city is shown as a centre for metalworking in the Ghaznavid empire (977\u20131186), which stretched from Iran to northern India. A tinted drawing from the Safavid period, produced around 400 years later, also reflects its \u201crefined\u201d courtly culture, as one of many cosmopolitan centers of arts and learning in the Islamic world.<\/span><\/p>\n Much of this exhibition in Room 43A is <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> rugs. although, pride of place belongs to the \u201crug with vase and building\u201d (1980\u20132000), flanked with angular camels, helicopters, and tanks. The weaving process makes for pixel-like forms, in which the human body incidentally becomes a tank, shaped by war. The rug also references the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, with Soviet soldiers standing in for the horned White Divs.<\/span><\/p>\n Through a shared history between objects, British Museum curators in the Middle East Department cleverly extend their work. The case has space for just one scene from the Shahnameh, of Rustam killing the aforementioned White Divs. At the other end of Room 43A, many more are laid out for closer inspection. During my visit, t<\/span>he\u00a0 museum\u2019s curator of the Islamic collections Shiva Mihan gravitates towards the last and largest, from the Great Mughal Shahnameh, which she <\/span>describes as \u201cthe most beautiful ever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Early war rugs subtly incorporated motifs; in a \u201cGarden carpet\u201d (1980\u20131990), helicopters take the place of birds. Others feature the amaryllis, a readily available flower, as well as red tulips, the national flower of Afghanistan which also represents Nowruz, the new year\u2019s celebration proscribed by the Taliban in the 1990s. Red variants of the former might be used to allude to the latter when their direct or explicit representation was banned, suggests Klink-Hoppe, \u201cas watermelons do for the national colors of Palestine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Over time, the presence of military technology becomes more explicit too, with more modern planes, yet the same AK47s, and tanks which recall Nintendo games consoles from the 1990s. These \u201ccruder,\u201d contemporary designs are now readily available online, the preserve of websites like <\/span>warrugs.com<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>rugsofwar.wordpress.com<\/span><\/a> \u2014 and the Imperial War Museum in London. There, Jim Ricks\u2019 conceptual work \u201cPredator (Carpet Bombing)\u201d (2016), is laid in the center of the<\/span> Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Drawing from Amsterdam-based designer Ruben Pater\u2019s <\/span>Drone Survival Guide<\/span><\/i> (2013), an illustration of various drone aircrafts, which itself references guides used to identify aircrafts in previous wars. While Ricks\u2019 name is first credited, the rug itself was produced by the Kabul-based Haji Naseer and Sons Carpet Makers, where the drones on Pater\u2019s survival guide are still in use. Placed in conversation with Walid Siti\u2019s \u201cWar Series VI\u201d (1987), the pair speak to continuities in present lives and lived experiences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Part of a series of larger works, commissioned by curator Paul McAree for <\/span>Telling Lies<\/span><\/i><\/a>, a 2015 exhibition at<\/span> Rua Red<\/span><\/a> in Dublin, and later displayed at <\/span>Creative Centenaries<\/span><\/i> at the <\/span>Ulster Museum<\/span><\/a> in Northern Ireland, \u201cPredator (Carpet Bombing)\u201d included in the British Museum\u2019s exhibition may also be considered another reflection of the relationship between Western\/Europe, and Afghanistan \u2014 and across borders closer to home.<\/span><\/p>\n Through the exhibition, the curators acknowledge the ambiguous agency of weaver women, often working to templates ordered by men, and also, at other times, realizing their creative expression. In this sense, these textiles embody the resistance \u2014 the push and pull \u2014 of both creative and curatorial practices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n War Rugs<\/span><\/i> joins a line of thoughtful presentations all in Room 43A \u2014 including curator Venetia Porter\u2019s 2022 display,<\/span> Artists making books: poetry to politics<\/span><\/i><\/a>, featuring Rokni Haerizadeh, Ramin Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian and Sadik Kwaish Alfraji, also shortlisted for the recent<\/span> Jameel Prize 7<\/span><\/a>; <\/span>Nalini Malani<\/span><\/a>; Issam Kourbaj; and Rachid Kora\u00efchi, many of whom remain on view in the galleries today. Though closer in geography to the British Museum\u2019s concurrent exhibition, ,<\/span>Silk Roads<\/span><\/i><\/a>, the <\/span>War Rugs<\/span><\/i> exhibition has more in common with<\/span> Hew Locke: what have we here?<\/span><\/i><\/a>, in illustrating how much can be unravelled in a comparatively small space \u2014 and how strategic, temporary displays can have more permanent legacies.<\/span><\/p>\n Tourism is especially well-represented, from romantic depictions of the natural landscapes, to later maps of the \u201cHippie Trail,” produced by the Afghan Ministry of Tourism. Klink-Hoppe explains how many of these early objects came into the British Museum\u2019s collections through a single curator, with a particular interest in ephemera.<\/span><\/p>\n The chapan (cloak) of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan\u2019s interim leader and president between 2002 and 2014, was a diplomatic gift to the Museum following the 2011 exhibition,<\/span> Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Deftly draped over a mannequin, its puppet-like installation receives a wry laugh from knowing publics, aware of his perception to many Afghans as a Western\/European puppet \u2014 and, indeed, the reference to \u201cSoviet puppet rugs\u201d of Najbullah in the early 1990s.<\/span><\/p>\n These interventions ensure our perspective remains with the people. In the final case, the \u201ccoalition rug\u201d of 2002 shows a large American flag, undermined by the inscription, \u201cMADE IN PAKISTAN.\u201d Yet beneath this grand narrative are a number of objects that stand testament to women\u2019s often invisible labor at home, and weaving as a source of work and regular income \u2014 much like those shown in Rachel Dedman\u2019s 2023 exhibition, <\/span>Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\nExpressions of Resistance<\/b><\/h4>\n
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<\/span><\/div><\/div>\nDesire<\/b><\/h4>\n
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<\/span><\/div><\/div>\nSymbolism<\/b><\/h4>\n
Curatorial Collaboration<\/b><\/h4>\n