Issue #24 ✿ Boteh 🥭 Craft and design journeys between East and West

This issue navigates a path between East and West. We try to avoid the one-way paths: West-bound progress and East-bound orientalism. Our path follows a life form that is transmitted over time as one of the world’s most distinctive motifs. The form begins in ancient Persia, with a design based on a cypress tree bending in the wind: boteh. It morphs into similar forms, including mango, almond, flower bud, until it arrives in the West as paisley.

In Western progress, destination supersedes origin: the latest is always better than what came before. In this issue, we try to redress this by re-introducing the original Persian word.

Thanks to weaver Liz Williamson for finding this path. You can trace its journey here.

Thanks also to our Pathfinders who helped develop this concept: Audrey & Arif Satar, Bernard Kerr, Blake Griffiths, Helen Ting, Jude van der Merwe, Kaamya Sharma, Liz Williamson, LOkesh Ghai, Madhvi Subrahmanian, Manasee Jog, Michele Elliot, Priyanka Jain, Sandra Bowkett, Susie Vickery and Wuthigrai Siriphon.

Indian Ocean Craft Triennial

Going East

Eastern revival

The wider world

Launch on 29 September

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