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Chanteh

Tribal textiles from Iran

Chantehs are small bags made by nomadic weavers in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. They are unpretentious and modest, full of charm and character. In the past they were never made for sale, because chantehs are the most personal of tribal weavings. Some, known as ‘dokhtarbaf‘ or ‘nashibaf‘, were bags made by girls learning skills from their mothers. Such chantehs are tiny and as naive as a child’s drawing. Some, called ‘bibibaf‘ or ‘ostadbaf‘, were dowry pieces, designed to show a young woman’s skill or mastery of the craft, and thus to demonstrate that she would be an asset to her future husband’s family. Others were made as wedding gifts or to celebrate special occasions, but most commonly they served to carry small objects for personal use. They were private things.

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Upcoming Exhibitions

Amanda Coogan in collaboration with Alvean Jones and Lianne Quigley with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf and the Centre for Deaf Studies
Freude! Freude!

The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art is excited to present a new work by renowned performance artist Amanda Coogan, Deaf artists Lianne Quigley and Alvean Jones with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf (DTD) and students from the Centre for Deaf Studies (CDS) at Trinity College Dublin. Freude! Freude! is a live exhibition, an embodied performance and installation which translates Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ode to Joy chorus into Irish Sign Language (ISL) and reinterprets the entire symphony through the lens of the Deaf experience. Using ISL as a choreographic language, Coogan, Quigley and Jones have worked with DTD and students from the CDS to produce an aural, visual and immersive feast that will be presented through a series of performances and exhibition installation.

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