Ordered Gabbehs; A Multicultural Text

Gabbeh is one type of different types of hand-woven carpets of Qashqaei tribes (South and Center of Iran) which is woven by the women of these tribes. In fact this hand-woven rug is kind of carpet woven to be slef-consumed which was woven from old times with creative and subjective patterns in a two dimensional and abstract format. The patterns are taken from the nature and environment where the weaver lives and her desires and subjectivity are represented on these rugs. Thus Gabbeh may be considered as a visual and cultural text produced by Qashqaei tribe, objectively representing tribal culture; in other words Gabbeh may be considered as a text with different visual layers signifying tribal cultural actions, believes and behaviors. But in this article we will study Gabbehs which are somehow different from the described type. The studied Gabbehs were woven by Qashqaei tribes women following the orders of urban society within recent years, and it was seen that the patterns of such ordered Gabbehs signify a cultural “other” and the forms are apparently different from ordinary tribal Gabbehs. The importance of this difference lies in the process of production of these hand-woven rugs. These Gabbehs were ordered by the urban society to Qashqaei women and they were not produced to be used in the family and for personal use; they were produced as a source of income. This change in the function of product has taken Gabbehs out of tribal family and changed it to a marketable good with a different formal structure. Now the weaver is not that free in creation of these Gabbehs and she is under the influence of ordering market, so that the created product while trying to keep its identity as a tribal product, it is a representation of the tastes of the ordering market. In fact these Gabbehs represent patterns different from those usual in ordinary tribal Gabbehs under the influence of the dominant/central culture of society. Different sign systems coming from the dominant culture from one part and tribal culture from another part co-exist and because of this contiguity of two different sign systems from different cultures has been the main factor in production of marked Gabbehs different from ordinary ones called “Ordered Gabbehs”. In this study considering the similarity of ordered Gabbehs with art in immigration, we have used Nojoomian’s approach “Paradox of Similarity and Difference in Art in Immigration” and supposing a similarity between Gabbeh weaver and immigrated artist from one part and the ordering market as representative of dominant culture with hosting country, the research concluded that ordered Gabbehs are works the creator of which has faced a dual order and at the same time she has experienced suspension of homogeneous identity and in “reading” such text different, heterogeneous and sometimes totally different codes from dominant culture and tribal culture are involved.