Antique carpet collectors are in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Istanbul is hosting the 15th International Conference on Oriental Carpets (ICOC) starting today and will continue through June 9.

The proceeds of the "Women Behind the Weaving Loom" exhibition, which will take place in the ballroom during the conference to be held at The Marmara Taksim, will be donated to the weaving workshop to be established in Hatay.

Participants of the conference, organized by the Istanbul Carpet Exporters Association (IHIB), include world-famous carpet, rug and weaving experts, art historians, academics and collectors. Within the scope of the event, exhibitions featuring priceless carpets, rugs and textiles will also be presented to visitors.

“We consider carpets, rugs and textiles as works of art, like paintings and sculptures, rather than a commercial commodity. Weaving is one of the greatest cultural treasures of these lands, and the ICOC Istanbul conference is a great opportunity for us to show the world once again that Anatolia is the homeland of carpets, rugs and weaving art, and to transfer our traditional art to the future," said Ahmet Hayri Diler, IHIB chairman of the Board of Directors.

İHİB Board member and ICOC Istanbul Committee President Serra Oruç said, “The aim of the international conference, held every four years is to raise awareness of collecting and to reveal that carpets and rugs are works of culture and art. We want to talk about the future of the weaving tradition. Researchers attending the conference from all over the world prepared their papers on this axis. We want to talk about the future of the weaving tradition. Researchers attending the conference from all over the world prepared their papers on this axis.”

This year’s theme, “Oriental Carpet Studies 2024: The Past and Future of Carpet Weaving and Collecting,” focuses on two main areas: “Historical Carpets and Textiles” and “Contemporary Art, Design and New Production.”

The opening session of the event will be held by Professor Walter Denny around the topic “Conservation and New Technological Frontiers in Carpet Study.”

In the sessions to be held on June 7-8, leading academics and experts in the field will present papers on the past, present and future of the art of weaving.

The closing panel, “The Future of Tradition,” will be run by Reyhan Polat, focusing on the innovative system of carpet presentations in museums, the use of AI in creating new designs and patterns and the ultimate practices of weaving and natural dyeing.

Other sessions will cover more traditional fields like Anatolian Carpets from the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, central tribal Asian weavings and felts, archaeological findings, new museum collections and technical aspects of carpet weaving structures.

Exhibitions

During the conference, the Istanbul Textile and Raw Material Exporters Association’s (ITHIB) exhibitions, titled “Atlas of Weaving” and “Women Behind the Weave,” which returned to its homeland after London and Berlin, will take place at The Marmara Taksim. The exhibition consists of current carpets and rugs produced by weaver women in Uşak.

The aim of the exhibitions is to establish a weaving workshop in Hatay, one of the places most affected by the Feb. 6, 2023 earthquakes, with the income obtained from the weavings in the exhibition.

The International Oriental Carpets Conference, to be organized simultaneously with ICOC, will also present exhibitions at the Turkish Islamic Arts Museum, Dolmabahçe Palace Art Gallery and Tophane-i Amire.

In the “Woven Treasures: Carpets and Fabrics from the Ottoman Palace” exhibition at the Dolmabahçe Palace Art Gallery, carpets and textiles from the palace collections are exhibited for the first time.

The “Colors of Anatolia: Rugs from Private Collections” exhibition at Tophane-i Amire consists of rugs and objects compiled from collections in different parts of the world.

These two exhibitions, to be opened simultaneously with the conference, can be seen for a month.

One of the two exhibitions at the Turkish Islamic Arts Museum includes works selected from the collection of the museum from the 13th century to the 17th century. The other one features works on loan from the collection of Anas Al Akhoann and Sandre Blake.

The exhibitions at the Museum of Turkish Islamic Arts will open on June 8 and can be visited for two months.

There will also be artist Belkıs Balpınar's pop-up exhibition at Anna Laudel Gallery and a selection from the U.S. photographer, collector and traveler Josephine Powell collection at the Vehbi Koç Foundation Büyükdere House.