Nasser Nishaburi

* I designed this rug to express the emotions that confinement within walls arises, those made by or for us, visible or non. Walls keep us from soaring and transcending beyond the set boundaries, limiting our view of the infinite horizons of possibilities beyond.

Such walls are all around us, experienced and felt by all, igniting a deep-seated desire to break them down, smash them and fly beyond their constraints.

This rug could serve as a reminder to keep the inner flame burning, to maintain our spirit, and to believe unwaveringly that these walls can be crossed and stepped over, for we stand taller than the walls.

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜

315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

This tribal Afghan rug, depicting a fierce Velociraptor, is a fascinating example of how the powerful influence of mass media can transform profoundly traditional and conservative art forms. The weaver was probably inspired by the iconic Jurassic Park, as it was woven around the same time the film was released.
While some may view this phenomenon as a destructive force, others may see it as an essential and inevitable aspect of the evolution of art and culture. The dilemma of balancing the preservation of traditional values and virtues with the demands of a rapidly changing world is something that we face in our daily lives. As we gradually surrender our souls to the allure of the new age, I am deeply concerned about the powerful influence of the Velociraptors who control the mass media and (or) run the world. The least I can do is to continue to celebrate and enjoy the beauty of the handmade carpets, one of the most amazing human heritage.

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

Over seventy years ago; a young Qashghai girl is weaving her rug somewhere in the valleys of the beautiful mount Zagros.
A couple of hundred knots into weaving, she begins dreaming. The weaving continues, and yarns of different colours, one after another, fly into her hands, she forms knots, and knots turn into shapes. She is Free, at least in her world of dreams, from dogma and bigotries.
She weaves for herself, for life, for the boy in the next tent, for love, for her future, for joy, for her friends and for a happy life. Hours later, she opens her eyes to see herself dancing with her beautiful hair flying with the wind, waving het scarf like a flag in her hand.
Enough with dreaming, she thinks and tightens her scarf over her beautiful long hair and returns to her tent to her life, where she dies, the dancing girl, remains still vivid, on her rug, still alive with her scarf in her hand.

Today, the granddaughter of the same Qashghai girl, a lioness, a woman, is dancing in the street. Her hair is flying like a flag; her spirit is high, and she is happy. She will not go back; she will "live" and never surrender her spirit.

She will gain her freedom sooner or later and one day will look at her grandmother's work and wonder how she could endure.

Bold & Bright || Embrace colours and add character to your living room with statement carpets.

Swing by our store to check out the new collection.

Reposted from .edition.home

What a beautiful day 😊

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

Working on a new collection 😊

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

We are looking forward to see you over the weekend 😊

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

It is in little details that one can feel the passion with which the tribal girls have made their rugs...

"All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites."

Marc Chagall

In the picture: a colourful runner which we made from fragments of old "Mafrashes". 300x80cm

Available in Singapore, contact for more information and price.

A few years ago, on the way back from work on the train, it occurred to me that I was missing something important, something that perhaps has become a thing of the past for many. As usual, EVERYONE around, including me, was staring at a screen, and I realised that "I am not thinking and SEEING anymore like I used to!". Those who remember the pre smartphones era would understand better what I mean: "Once upon a time, there were times that we could do nothing but look and think."

Perhaps that is why the old tribal weavings like these saddlebags are different. They are the production of an epoch when people observed their surroundings deeply and could see, a time when weavers had the mental ability to translate their dreams, feelings and beautiful surroundings into such colourful pieces.

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

Nasser Nishaburi updated their address.

"Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue, As someone somewhere sings about the sky."
Lord Byron

Perhaps Lord Byron, the author of the Don Juan, was inspired by a rug like this exquisite Tabriz in blue when he wrote this line. 😊

Happy New Year my friends ❤



#2022

The past couple of years has not been the easiest time for many. Yet, many of us have endured the period and kept the fire within us burning brighter than ever. One can meet the winter and find it beautiful only with the warmth within. In the last days of 2021, let's believe in a better future;

"My dear, in the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy.
For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me,
within me, there's something stronger-
something better, pushing right back."

Albert Camus (The stranger)

The Christmas tree is a stunning symbol. An evergreen tree, an emblem of immortality, with colourful decoration reminding us of Jesus Christ's birth and his gift to humanity. One does not need to be Christian to appreciate his message that one could summarise in a single word; "LOVE":

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40 NIV"

May your life be blessed with "LOVE" on this beautiful day.

Merry Christmas!

“I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness? The bird responded, ‘love lifts me.”
Hafez (1350-1390 AD)

The Persian poems and mystic scripts are full of metaphors. The writers often use birds, trees, wine, and such to describe subjects such as mystical transcendence.
Many weavers and designers in the past lived and grew up within a spiritual culture. Reciting the poems of Hafez, Rumi, Khayyam, and other great Persian poets were the essential elements of entertainment in any gathering.
The influence of the rich culture is a fundamental aspect that makes antique Persian carpets what they are; Everlasting pieces of art that chant and dance for those who can understand them.

The Tehran rug here is a fascinating example of such carpets from the late 19th century, beautifully arousing a feeling of an upward movement.

Come over this weekend to listen to their stories.

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
315 Outram Road,
Singapore 🇸🇬

Brooming rug, to me, is quite a ritual. It feels therapeutic to observe the pile and texture closely and see the colours jump to life, sweeping the dust off the surface.

I will never forget the first time that I did it when I was 12. I bent my back and started brooming with the tip of the broom. My father stopped me and told me right away, "Son, to do that, you need to kneel and do it with all your force and keep the broom almost horizontal." I followed his instruction and stopped after a few strokes. Boy! that was not easy, especially with rough and heavy Tabrizi brooms.

Many years later, I am still the first to grab one on every occasion that there is a need for caressing a nice rug with a broom. And I still kneel.

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
315 Outram Road,
Singapore 🇸🇬

Looking forward to see you over the weekend 😊

NASSER NISHABURI
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
315 Outram Road,
Singapore 🇸🇬

Detail of an antique Qasghai rug, late 19th century.

The story of the conflicts between mouse and cat is best known for Tom and Jerry. Their eternal skirmishes have amused many of us since childhood. However, very few have heard of another mouse and cat tale, a Persian one, that Obeid Zakani wrote a few hundred years back in the 14th century AD. The piece is Obeid's best-known work in his usual sarcastic style. It is a daring criticism of the rulers of his time.

The story starts with the sorrow and repentance of a cat for killing a mouse;

"Court of the Highest, I repent; no more will my sharp teeth be soaked in mouses gore. And for the blood that I've unjustly shed, I'll give the poor as alms twelve pounds of bread."*

A little mouse who was hiding behind the pulpit heard the cat's moans and saw his tears and ran to other mice to break the fantastic news;

"Great news! The cat converted. He repents. He's filled with sacred Muslim sentiments. This paragon of pious virtues keeps prayers vigils in the mosque, and moans and weeps."*

However, the happiness of the mouse nation didn't last long. The prayer beads, the long beard and the pulpit soon became tools of deception. The cat kills five of seven elder mouses who go to congratulate him on his conversion.

The war breaks out between the army of cats and mice shortly after.

(*from the translation of the Mush O Gorbeh, by Dick Davis)

The picture is from a detail of an antique . It is a beautiful example of the influence of thousands of years old culture in such fantastic rugs whose beauty is far more profound than their intricate patterns on the surface.

𝗡𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗥 𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗜
315 Outram Road,
04-05 Tan Boon Liat Building,
Singapore 🇸🇬 169074

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

I asked an old lady in the village about the name of the design. To my surprise, she answered, "Bulud". The word is Turkish, in which Shahsavans converse and means "the cloud". I couldn't relate the pattern that looked to me as abstract flowers to clouds. I asked her; why?

She shot me a mocking gaze and asked, "Have you not seen how the clouds look at a sunset? "

I answered her with a feeling of embracement, "Yes, I have, but not with your eyes."

The rug here is in "Bulud" (cloud) design. It is a magical creation of a young lady of Shahsavan descent in the village of Golmakan in Zanjan province.

Details make all the difference between ordinary and exceptional. Such is the case of this beautiful "Khosrow and Shirin" rug. The design is inspired by a thousand-year-old story of a passionate affair between a Persian king and an Armenian princess.

However, two little symbols make this rug an extraordinary piece;

The portrait of Reza Shah Pahlavi who ruled Iran from 1925 to 1941, is most tastefully decorating this rug as a sign of the weaver's devotion to the king at the time. The first Pahlavi king was a controversial person from his days as an army officer who later became a coup leader that clicked the beginning of an end to the Qajar Dynasty. He remains so even today. It is extremely rare to see his pictures in rugs.

Reza Shah was notorious for his temper and cruelty. This historical fact makes another emblem in this rug highly interesting and unique. The weaver has creatively reinterpreted the Imperial Coat of Arms of Iran under the Pahlavi Dynasty by replacing the swords with flowers.  

It is most likely that we will never know the weaver of this rug. However, like her ancestor's, her rug helps to keep the myths, traditions, and legends alive for hundreds of years. 

A Shasavan weaver with her rug. Both the creation and the creator radiate serenity.