Loading...CARAVANSERAIS A METAPHOR
A photography exhibition by TOM SCHUTYSER
Opening Reception Thursday, June 18, 6-8 pm
Exhibition June 18-26, 2009
Salle exposition de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Val-de-Seine (ensa-pvs) 3-15, quai Panhard et Levassor 75013 Paris, France
Monday-Saturday, 11 am – 6 pm
Artist’s statement
Caravanserais, a metaphor for a successful platform for communication and exchange
In early 2003 I traveled in a West-East direction along the Silk Road from Iran through Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) to China. In Northern Iran these silent solemn ruins of caravanserais languished in eerie, desolate, motionless desert winter landscapes. They are a reminder of the prosperous eras of the Silk Road along which trade, inventions, diplomacy, religions and cultures were exchanged between China, the Western world, the Middle East and Central Asia.
For centuries, these caravanserais served as staging posts in the Middle East and Central Asia along the famous caravan routes of the Silk Road. Thousands of these caravanserais were built offering services along the trade routes and in cities, accommodating traders, pilgrims and other travelers.Today many caravanserais are crumbling ruins, relics of flourishing and thriving days in the past in the Middle East and Central Asia. Many more have vanished or have been swallowed by cities. Some survive, offering their useful compound layout for such facilities as hotels, museums, storage, or garrison posts. Built as way stations in a network of trade routes crossing international boundaries, connecting China and the Western world overland, these caravanserais were a platform for prosperous commercial and multicultural exchange, mutually benefitting all parties, surviving numerous political, military, religious and economic calamities.
Today, in ruins, fragile, a reminder from bygone eras, these caravanserais also reveal a link with the present. With today’s very tumultuous relations between the Western and Muslim world, the caravanserais are like a metaphor for a successful platform of international exchange and communication.These caravanserais reveal many dimensions: dimensions of times and eras gone by; of ebbs and flows in history, regions and empires; of commercial, diplomatic, military, religious, cultural and social exchanges and communications between different cultures and religions; of conflicts and prosperity, aggression and resolve. Yet these caravanserais survived and thrived for centuries. Revealing images and stories about the caravanserais, may give hints and inspiration in a quest for finding new platforms of exchange and communication in a multitude of dimensions between the Western and Muslim world. Similar to this powerful story, one can discover other objects, concepts, ideas and infrastructures deeply embedded in history, that have crossed boundaries between people, cultures and societies. These are like carriers or conduits that can help formulate positive messages and help build a basis of understanding, communication and exchange instead of a continued shouting match between each other claiming what is right and what is wrong.
