Point of Reference: mapping Artsakh through carpets

Seven cream carpets with deep red patterns have taken over AHA Collective’s new gallery space in Yerevan. The contemporary carpet collection is titled “Point of Reference” and depicts maps of villages and cities of Artsakh, one of the cradles of Armenian carpet making. These carpets, which appear like art pieces, were originally unveiled on July 7, 2024, at Yerevan’s Demirchyan Complex. They were the product of a collaboration between AHA Collective, Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival (GAIFF) and ARARAT Museum. For the first time in GAIFF’s 20-year history, contemporary carpets replaced the traditional red carpet we are used to seeing at film festivals, functioning as handwoven textiles that visitors walked on at this year’s GAIFF in Yerevan. Under the art direction of AHA collective curator Nairi Khatchadourian, the collection was conceived with designs by visual artist Davit Kochunts made between September and December 2023. The designs translate the territory of Artsakh as seen from above. Samvel Karapetyan’s monumental and extremely valuable publication “Microtoponyms of Artsakh” was of great support to Kochunts during the research and creative phase. Following the creation of the carpet collection, Kochunts produced limited edition linocuts of the designs, which are also on display at AHA Collective’s gallery. “Point of Reference is centered around the idea that people walking on [the carpets] will see [them] from above. With the advances of technology there is a constant flow of images created with drones, and the abundance of those images influences peoples’ consciousness differently,” Kochunts told the Weekly. “It is very important to see correctly from above and to present it properly.” The rugs are even more poignant, considering that Kochunts did his military service in Artsakh and participated as an artillery soldier in the 2020 Artsakh war. The carpets are named after places in Artsakh including Tigranakert and Dadivank, acting as geographical maps of settlements. The predominantly red carpets were handwoven and naturally dyed by female weavers from Handmade Goris and Woolway Studio. Three of the carpets were woven by Milena Ordiyants in her new home in Dzoraghbyur, a weaver born in Shushi who was forcibly displaced multiple times after the 2020 Artsakh war followed by the 2023 ethnic cleansing launched by Azerbaijan. “Having a contribution in creating these contemporary carpets, which are connected with my homeland, Artsakh, is extremely significant and touching,” Ordiyants said. “Carpets that take an individual to Artsakh are like a flying carpet telling the story of Artsakh so that Artsakh is not forgotten.” Bringing a reminder of Armenians’ recent exile from Artsakh to Armenia’s biggest film festival, the carpets remind us how integral Armenia and Artsakh’s recent history is to every part of collective Armenian life. “Golden Apricot is the largest film festival in Armenia, during which different people and different guests walk through,” Kochunts said. “Carpets are one of the best media to have an impact on people and to deconstruct thoughts and styles, from which I never renounce when creating.” At first glance a visitor to the festival might see a beautiful handwoven textile, but the meaning is deeper — the carpets remind us of land that has been lost, woven by women based in the very vicinity of that land. The deep red tones of these carpets particularly serve as a reminder of this. “I had no desire to get rid of red at once, first of all because the current times and tragic events are related (forcible deportation of Armenians from Artsakh, victims...),” Khochunts said. “Red is alarming — alarming and very symbolic.” At a film festival, red carpets lead the audience to a blockbuster movie, but the roads woven into Khochunts’ carpets lead their viewers through towns and cities that Armenians have now lost access to. “In festival situations, a person is very obsessed with himself, but he is asleep in his normal state. He forgets to think, care, sympathize with his own compatriot, his own kind. He does not know how to ask himself questions,” Kochunts said. “That’s when the artist has to use the occasion to create an emergency situation.” The deep red lines and grids on these carpets are maps of Mataghis, Tigranakert, Dadivank, Berdzor, Shushi and Charektar, and the red cross carpet design is the culmination of the “carpet road” — a stark reminder of the places Armenians are now unable to enter. Now removed from the cinema festival and inserted into the gallery space, the carpets are exhibited alongside the linocuts that accompany them. Red in color, they arrest the viewer so that they cannot look away. While now outside of a film context, their symbolic meaning remains, serving as a quiet reminder of our recent history. AHA Collective has produced two contemporary carpet collections with Kochunts. After the collection “Bold Khndzoresk” (2023), curator Nairi Khatchadourian directed the first red carpet collection with the same sensitive approach to creating a dialogue between contemporary art and craftsmanship and taking the creation beyond the given disciplines and practices to a larger audience. “It is important that both the craft and the designs continuously evolve and reflect current realities. In this way, new cultural discourses will form in society, and a deeper connection will be made between the past and the present. ‘Point of Reference’ is not only a demonstration of artistic and carpet-making mastery passed down through generations, but a woven story anchored in our turbulent present time. The maps evolve into a new signage system, serving as geographic and metaphorical touchstones and historical points of reference for the collective community. This contemporary red carpet collection transcends its functional and decorative role, turning into forms of reflection and innovation, claiming that culture survives and thrives in the physical, memorial and sensorial territories we carry and inhabit,” Khatchadourian said. Point of Reference is on display at AHA Collective, Moskovyan 31, Yerevan, in Yerevan until November 2.

Point of Reference: mapping Artsakh through carpets

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Lizzy Vartanian

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This story is FREE for you...

Lizzy Vartanian

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