Many will be familiar with the work of the Fatima bint Mohammed bin Zayed Initiative (FBMI), a social enterprise that supports women in Afghanistan, employing them to produce handmade rugs. But those that translate handmade as traditional are sorely mistaken. As tie-ups with the American designer Norma Kamali or, more recently, the Emirati cartoon series Freej show, FBMI is far from staid. While it does celebrate traditional Afghan carpet-making techniques, it's also quick to experiment with new ways of presenting these age-old crafts.
One need only look to its latest offerings. FBMI’s newest collection includes collaborations with Christopher Farr, who together with his business partner Matthew Bourne is credited with revolutionising contemporary rug design since launching the Britain-headquartered Christopher Farr brand in the late 1980s. Farr’s creations for FBMI include seemingly random but strongly graphic monochrome patterns as untraditional as can be.
Other new FBMI creations, such as Rainbow, which consists of bold, brightly coloured jagged lines, highlight the company’s willingness to experiment with colour. This is reiterated in its vibrant Ikat design, where pops of blue, red and pink give this much-loved technique – formed by binding individual yarns or bundles of yarn before the dyeing process – a new lease of life. A black-and-white Ikat rug, with its sharp patterning, further highlights the skill of the FBMI artisans.
FBMI’s Creative Mamluk design, meanwhile, experiments with the traditional Mamluk style, characterised by a central octagonal medallion surrounded by a series of smaller geometric motifs. The collection also features Parda designs, which were originally produced by Turkmen tribes in the city of Andkhoy, Afghanistan. There are other more traditional patterns, such as the Boteh design, which employs the pear-shaped, paisley-like motif so characteristic of Oriental carpets. The motif, which can represent eternal life and fertility or even fire, has been used to decorate textiles in Persia since approximately AD 650.
The carpets are available at Yas Mall, Abu Dhabi, and FBMI’s showroom on Jumeirah Beach Road, Dubai.
sdenman@thenational.ae
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