Traditional arts and techniques

Ali Ghurchian (Jordan): archery champion on horseback and continuator of ancestral equestrian traditions. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

Near Tehran, Ali Ghurchian perpetuates and teaches the age-old technique of archery on horseback. You can visit its equestrian center in Kordan, near Tehran. It is one example among others of an age-old Art, continued today by enthusiasts, to pass it on to future generations. Iran is a modern and contemporary country, but it also lives in several times: it lives under the regime of three calendars – Persian, Arabic, Western – because its complexity is a dynamic intertwining of archaic and recent cultures.

Composition of a glazed ceramic mosaic. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

Tying a carpet in Na’in. Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.

It is also this Iran, both contemporary and ancient, that we invite you to discover: the Iran of calligraphers and traditional wrestlers, artisans and Sufis, brotherhoods and poets. An Iran that draws material from the past to build the future: the Yazd School of Architecture updates old techniques, such as wind towers (badgir), in order to prepare for future ecological transitions. Traditional medicine, inherited in particular from Avicenna (11th century), is taught in universities, in the same way as the most recent modern medicine. Poetry is a still living art, and is appreciated in private circles as well as in public events, far from any elitism. Every year, calligraphy competitions are organized in a country where the printed book market is one of the most dynamic in the Middle East. Artisans still know how to work using ancestral techniques, whether it be ceramic mosaics or wood marquetry, vault construction or printed fabric. Carpeting is an art still practiced, and still constitutes a source of income for many families and regions.

In Iran, the past is therefore always present: welcome to a culture that knows how to harmonize centuries-old heritage and contemporary life, calligraphy and smartphones, ancestral rites and cutting-edge technologies.

Restoration of the glazed ceramic covering of the Royal Mosque of Isfahan (17th century). Photograph: ©Patrick Ringgenberg.