The Shahnameh carpet is the centrepiece of Reweaving Memory: Storytellers of Persia, an exhibition at Wei Gallery in the historic Chatham Maison in Hong Kong Island’s Mid-Levels.
Inspired by the 10th-century epic poem by Abul-Qasim Ferdowsi, which recounts the origins of both Iran and the world, it was designed by master painter Gholam Hossein Khiabani Tabrizi. Made from Kurk wool and silk with more than 300 colours, the carpet was completed in 1975 after five years of weaving.
Viewed closely, it reveals a dense field of story and structure, on which pastoral and hunting scenes, royal processions and vegetal motifs serve as narrative elements, their intricate details and colour shifts echoing the depth of the epic that inspired it. One of only five of its kind at this scale, the Shahnameh carpet is on display in Hong Kong for the first time.
The work anchors a wider presentation of 20 rare Persian carpets, displayed across three thematic rooms titled Why Remember, The Storytellers and Stories That Endure. Together, the exhibition traces Persian myth, memory and visual history across more than 2,500 years of civilisation, examining how carpets function not only as decorative objects but also as vessels of cultural memory and storytelling.
Royal hunting scenes, the Tree of Life, the Simurgh, and the Lion and Sun are just some of the motifs that recur across the works, carrying shared meanings through generations of weavers. Throughout the exhibition, attention is also given to the women responsible for producing the majority of hand-knotted Persian carpets, whose labour and craftsmanship preserved these visual traditions across centuries.
Installed within the restored domestic interiors of Chatham Maison rather than a conventional white-cube gallery, the carpets are presented in a setting that emphasises their lived histories and material presence, from their intricate hand-knotting to the signs of repair and use accumulated over time. Reweaving Memory: Storytellers of Persia runs until March 5, 2027
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The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.