Maryam Mohamadi uses a traditional craft of felt hat-making to produce home decor for Iranian homes.
This project is a response to the stagnation, anonymity and confusion found in design in my country. Today human beings are dominated by production and consumption. In the industrial age, the development of the economic system is no longer determined by the question of “what is good for people”, but rather of what is good for the growth of the systems. It means human is not presented as the ultimate goal but as a medium.
The previous decades were very powerful and rich in this field. There is an absence of Indigenous design knowledge and spaces for community and collaboration. So I started designing some products with historical and cultural elements.
In the culture where I grew up, design has always been associated with art, even in functional products. You can see the artistic motifs engraved in Persian clay or painted on metal utensils. Even the famous architectural spaces are also artistic masterpieces. Maybe this vision derived from our mystical thinking.
Finally, in 2018, I started to design some home decor products, with Persian native methods and materials. “Namad” is an ancient Iranian craft, made from wool and used to make clothes and carpets. I have redesigned the indigenous manufacturing methods, for making new products that are appropriate for today.
This lighting is produced by a method derived from a type of Persian felt hat that was used by nomadic men in the past. Today this is a forgotten art. The shaping involves squeezing and kneading wool. It is usually men’s work and is done by my colleague Hasan. I do the moulding and decorating.
Follow @mageli.ds (thanks @mscraftland)
Comments
The article was very good. Thank you. But I would have liked to read more of Ms. Mageli in the article. The border between handicrafts and industrial design has been widely discussed in today’s Iranian society, and Ms. Mageli’s work is a good example of this; “Using traditional arts to promote design art in Iran”.