Weaving Residency - Golafshan Handicraft
As part of our endeavor to bring together weavers and textile artists from different parts of Iran, we had the pleasure of hosting our first weaving residency at the Manouchehri textile workshops.
Shohreh Ghassemabadi stems from the Caspian village of Ghassemabad in the northern province of Gilan, known for its rich cultural heritage and textile arts - practiced exclusively by women.
Shohreh herself has returned to her ancestral craft after a legal education, and devoted her time exclusively to weaving under the brand Golafshan Handicraft for ten years.
The uniqueness of Ghassemabad weaving, originally done in silk, involves the manual addition of a thick extra weft to the plain two-shaft weave, creating “pixels” of color by using a plate of wood, called Lethāk, which functions as a third shaft to raise the warp threads in a particular sequence.
This technique is used to add a vast array of symbols and patterns, mostly derived from nature, as well as the weaver’s imagination.
Shohreh spent a week in our workshops, exploring the wider range of options granted by our large, four-shaft looms and applying her technique to create a unique work for the Manouchehri Textile Museum collection on our silk loom. The mornings were spent sharing her technique and experience with our weavers.
