TEHRAN -- A collection of kilims woven by women of the nomadic tribe Afshar in the Sirjan region, one of Iran’s main kilim centers, will be showcased in an exhibition at Tehran’s Mess Negar Gallery on Thursday.

The collection has been prepared by Mohammadreza Jalili and his wife, Elham Tajalli, the gallery announced in a press release on Tuesday.

“Each work from the collection recounts a story from the Afshar women, who have spent half of their lives weaving kilims and developing the patterns and designs from those artists who lived during the reign of the Safavids and their successors, and improving their skills with knots in kilims,” Jalili said.

“This form of the art has its origins in the Safavid era (1502-1736), a period during which the art of kilim weaving was restricted only to women and the art helped them raise their status in their tribe,” he added.

Jalili said that kilim weaving is still a part of women’s daily duties in the Ashar tribe and it is also their main source of income.

The exhibition will run for one week at the gallery, which can be found at No. 5, Park Prince Building, on Molla Sadra Highway.

Jalili who is a graduate of civil engineering also put another collection on show at the gallery during last January.

He got to know the beautiful art of Sirjan when he was working on different projects in Kerman and Sirjan, and together with Tajalli collected the kilims.

Photo: Persian kilims from Sirjan

MMS/YAW
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