| Narrative: |
| Situation Before the Initiative Began: |
| Women, children and youth are working in the carpet looms day and days. They suffer back pain, sight reduction and hand trembling because the workshops don’t have proper working condition, lighting nor good ergonomic chairs stands, and the lower school attendance rate for the minors. |
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| Establishment of Priorities: |
| The first priority established by the village councils and regional authorities who were responsible for providing health, safety and environment [HSE] for artists was to improve bad working and living conditions of carpet weavers. Top reserve and revive the traditional art of weaving carpet was their second priority. Another priority was to create and artistic integration of music and mosaic of wood to assist weavers. The idea of creating a mechanism like carpet and to bring the sound of the carpet fabric was the project assigned to Seifollah shokri of the research hakim workshop. |
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| Formulation of Objectives And Strategies: |
| The main goal of this project was to improve the poor condition of the workshops of carpet weaving, to deal with officials regarding this vulnerable and diligent group and to broadcast the voice to the world. Every person can enjoy it without any restriction of age, race, gender, physical health or knowledge of music. Another goal of this initiative was to motivate a series of art education, inspired by the surroundings in order to integrate the various arts and boosting public morale and team work in order to improve the lives of people. |
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| Mobilisation of Resources: |
| All activities including idea, design and construction of the instrument were Seifollah shokri. He shaped the design of the instrument and after constructing the replica of it in which 4 people could play it together at the same time persuaded Qazvin governor, Mr. Ajam, to invest on his initiative. Mr. Hassan gervee drafted the design of the instrument with AutoCAD. There was no wire mechanism on the market due to special, so Seifollah shokri designed a machine to make the wire while Mr. Roozbeh barfi and two of his colleagues built it. Abbas rashvand and 4 of his students made wire holders to keep the frequency tuning with turning machine. Miss Fateme afshari and Seifollah shokri mosaicked with wood carpet map of Qazvin on resonance box of the mechanism, its shape resemble half woven rugs. |
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| Process: |
In the beginning it seemed impossible to make this work because this mechanism was different from the definitions of the music world and the design system of instruments.
One of the problems was physical law of reducing the length of wire in the cords vibrate which we could not use it in this instrument. Since “Farsh” had been inspirited from the carpet frame our focus was to keep all of the carpet aspects that viewers remember labors of the weavers of carpet. Due to lack of proper wire on the market we decided to design and build a machine for making wire. By this device, special composite wires were made in multi layer and different diameters, each of them while playing a particular sound frequency produced.
Resonance box is combination of approximately 300 pieces of wood put together 4 different colors shaped old carpet map of Qazvin and beautiful eye-catching picture emerged. This mechanism having the third sawhorse on the resonance box can support over 300 notes. The invention of this instrument was made a national festival dedicated to this instrument that some of the goals of this festival were: establishment of carpet museum to sell carpet by the carpet weavers; live music concert in the presence of people and authorities; create a clip about carpet workshops and progressive of making carpet instrument; invitation of the authorities concerned and reviewing the problems of carpet weavers. Mr. Hamzaee tracked progress of works in meeting the Hakim workshop, a historic cistern of cultural heritage, every two months. Mrs. Azam Akbar Halvaee and Shokoufa Aghasyan had a weekly basis to monitor progress construction of process and made regular reports to the Organization Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism. Before making this instrument display images of musical instruments were forbidden from Iranian television and a limited number of live concert were held with specific conditions in Qazvin but “Farsh” playing were showing along with the official Iranian television networks for the first time, in fact prohibition of display music instruments with “Farsh” were broken.
The instrument were unveiled on the present government and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and pieces of music was played on 11 Nov. 2010. Also the festival was began on the present Mr. Merdasi, the chief of Iran National Carpet Center, officially. |
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| Results Achieved: |
| Cost related to research and build a replica of the initial phase was to pay personal Seifollah shokri. The governor, Mr. Ajam, agreed to make all instrument costs, the festival of the governor budget could be allocated. No loan was involved. A few good Samaritans like rouhollah shokri contributed some of our basic needs at the initiation of the project. Both women and men were involved to achieve goals at all levels of planning, decision making, monitoring and enforcement. After successfully putting the spotlight on tradition art of carpet making and carpet restoration of Qazvin, we decided to preserve the cultural heritage with music instrument restoration of Elamite period, 6000 years ago. The instruments were designated based on the shape on seals discovered at Susa. We could reconstruct arjan lute, choghamish harp, zagal harp and dozele, a kind of wind instrument. We’ve donated them to chogha zanbil temple in Susa. The organisation cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism has borrowed low interest loans to carpet weavers; they will start to pay them back as their products become marketable. Iran national carpet centre also were sold some carpets in the exhibition area rug to help the carpet weavers. |
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| Lessons Learned: |
| One of the most important lessons learned in this project was manufacturing process of multi-layer and composite wire that we used this system for survival and reconstruction the music instrument of Elamite period. The wire of instrument like arjan lute, choghamish harp and zagal harp were made of silk and sixth layer, in addition to strengthening they were preserved the voice of the ancient instrument. Another lesson was the use of composite wood and metal while we are going to use this method for construction of the modern instruments such as the dulcimer. The art and music in particular in iran as personal and less by state authorities is supported, we were able to provide improved communication between governmental organisations and artist in this project. Another lesson of the project was team work, everyone involved in decision making and ability of individual was to serve a common purpose. Combining the various arts in the community and innovative use of music as expressive language carpet that taught us to express an unfavourable condition of the other art |
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| Transfers: |
| Music is the only common language of humanity that does not translate and at different ages are able to guide nation in the sorrows and joys. Every human being regardless of religion, class, and gender with listening to music feels pleasure, relaxing and thinking. Farsh has unique abilities: it is the first instrument that can support more than 300 notes and 10 people can play it together at the sometime, also it is first instrument that can be played in different ways: chordophone, percussion by bow and fingers, notes that mechanism is not limit interims of climate, gender, race, age, health. Therefore any country with the culture and history can be related of this instrument to make itself music. The main idea of making the instrument was expressed problem of carpet making by the language of music, hence the same idea can be implemented in other cultures, music attract the opinion of the government to improve life for humanity. In addition creating pleasure and peace of mind we can lead government and public opinion towards the difficulty in new ways. Our team ready to share with other countries experiences gained in this project. We would only help themselves, they are also able to create new ideas and with integrating arts reach to lofty stable goals. |
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| Related Policies: |
| Mr. Hamzee as the county planning department in Qazvin province formed a committee to celebrate the national festival of carpet instrument, the purpose of this committee was to develop and prosper carpet of Qazvin. Governor was sponsor and coordinator of the program committee. The organization cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism in coordination with Qazvin municipality selected saad al saltine historic location as the place for opening ceremony, this organization also tracked video festival directed by molla abbasi. The art Qazvin institute announced a public call for carpet, clothing and costume photo gallery. The business organization of Qazvin in coordination with Iran national carpet center did an exhibition of carpet at the festival; therefore some stand of saad al saltine was devoted to carpet workshops. The carpet maker private complex honarparvan noadish managed by Mr. hosseini in coordination with imam Khomeini relief foundation woven rug was mapped by shape of farsh.Mrs. Fardad had been provided this outline. Mr. seyed kamal rezai was composer and music supervisor of 20 people had live music concert. Also, the department of culture and Islamic guidance of Qazvin licensed the concert hall to live music |
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SHOPE 
