A Thousand Motifs Lahiji Carpet Exhibition
Tehran-2026
Agora Building, Tehran, Iran
A Thousand Motifs a project that expands the carpet beyond its role as a purely visual artwork, transforming it into a multilayered experience of pattern, colour, sound, image, and space.
The project is the result of years of experience in carpet design and weaving a journey in which tradition is approached not as a fixed form to be repeated, but as a living ground for reinterpretation, experimentation, and new creation.
In Thousand Motifs , the carpet becomes the beginning of an experience rather than its conclusion. Its structure, details, and underlying logic extend into the exhibition space, where they are reinterpreted through image, sound, and spatial elements.
The visitor enters a narrative that begins with the warp and weft and continues through the space of the exhibition, gradually leading back to the carpet itself.
⸻
Concept
Thousand Motifs emerges from the intersection of two paths: the continuation of tradition and the rethinking of it.
The structures of Persian carpet are revisited through a contemporary perspective not to distance them from their roots, but to discover the possibilities that already exist within them.
Here, the carpet is more than a surface for pattern. It is a system of form, colour, rhythm, repetition, and time. The exhibition seeks to take these layers beyond the surface of the carpet and transform them into a new visual and auditory experience.
⸻
The Carpet
At the centre of the project is a carpet created through years of experience, study, design, and weaving. Its diversity of colour, multiplicity of elements, and intricate structure form an expansive world of pattern and rhythm.
Thousand Motifs is rooted in Lahiji’s understanding of the carpet as a living system one in which colour, line, repetition, proportion, and rhythm exist in continuous relation to one another.
The carpet is not merely the subject of the exhibition; it is the source and primary language of its visual and sonic elements.
⸻
Exhibition Space
The exhibition space was conceived as a gradual journey into the world of Thousand Motifs a narrative unfolding through three layers: image, sound, and visual narrative.
Image was developed from the warp and weft and from the design structure of the carpet itself, reinterpreting its visual elements within a contemporary spatial language.
Sound was created from the sounds of the carpet’s production process sounds drawn from its making, from materials and tools to the movement of the hand and the act of weaving.
The visual narrative tells the story of Thousand Motifs and reveals aspects of its long journey through design and weaving a story of time, patience, and repetition embedded in the making of the carpet.
Together, these three layers gradually lead the visitor from an encounter with the different elements of Thousand Motifs towards the work itself; at the end of the journey, the carpet appears as the culmination of the entire experience.
⸻
Visual Design
Among pattern and colour, the image moves beyond the representation of the carpet and becomes an experience of form, rhythm, and movement. Inspired by the structure of warp and weft, light and image take shape within a fluid space where the gaze is not merely an act of observation, and each encounter can create a new meaning.
Visual artist: Aria Sattari
⸻
Sound Design
In Thousand Motifs , sound emerges from the repetition and rhythm of the patterns from the movement of the hand, the order of the knots, and the quiet passage of time.
The work seeks to make audible what cannot be seen within the carpet: a hidden rhythm that moves through the warp and weft and continues in the form of sound.
Sound Designer:Arshia Lahiji
⸻
Visual Narrative
This visual narrative tells the story of Thousand Motifs and reveals parts of its journey through design and weaving a story shaped by years of time, patience, and repetition.
The video moves beyond what is visible on the surface of the carpet, exploring moments, processes, and untold aspects of its making fragments of a journey woven into Thousand Motifs .
Each frame is an attempt to reveal what is not immediately seen: repetition, patience, and the passage of time woven into the warp and weft. An attempt to make Thousand Motifs not only seen, but felt.
Visual Narrative artist:hanyck yousefi
⸻
The Lahiji Book
The Thousand Motifs event provided the occasion for the publication and launch of Volume II of the Lahiji Book a publication that extends beyond the exhibition and presents a broader narrative of the Lahiji brand, its perspective, and its journey within the world of carpets.
The book explores Lahiji’s history, design, materials, production processes, and the ideas behind its works, documenting part of the journey through which the brand has evolved and continued.
The launch of the second volume alongside Thousand Motifs created a connection between a contemporary project and the broader story of Lahiji its past, present, and continuing journey.
