2023 Nyfossum: Nomadenes teppekunst

It is not easy to imagine a culture where you do not have more things than you carry with you. This years exhibition in the barn at Nyfossum we show 200 carpets from 100 years from the Baluch people. The Balutsch nomads have always had their traffic routes in the border areas of eastern Iran, formerly Persia, and western Afghanistan. They are driven by the animals' migration on their way to water and pasture.

They have kept their carpet patterns alive from generation to generation through women's hands. The patterns have been passed down from mother to daughter, and then passed on to the next generation. The carpets' materials are sheep wool, camel wool and goat hair. Rarely cotton and silk. Human migration is governed by the animals' need for pasture and water. The women spin materials on a handle, while the actual tying and weaving only takes place where they stay for a longer period.

The Belutian carpets carry a language of some resistance, but strong passion can be experienced in the presence of these cultural treasures that we are showing this summer in the barn at Nyfossum.

The exhibition consists of 200 carpets made over the past 100 years, collected over several decades by the collectors Jan Eskeland and Lars Nygård. The exhibition in the barn at Nyfossum is the largest and most important cultural display of oriental carpet art shown in Norway.