The Gurama Centre
An almost-forgotten tradition, given new life in Gala village.
What can a centuries-old craft offer a world that moves this fast? For its aesthetic alone, gurama still draws people in, but by the early 2000s it survived mainly in rural memory, practised in pockets and largely absent from contemporary artistic life. The Gurama Centre was founded to change that: not by freezing the craft in place, but by giving it the support, materials and audience it needs to keep developing.
A CENTRE, NOT A MUSEUM
The Gurama Centre opened on 20 December 2020, a joint initiative of the Icherisheher Museum Centre, under the Administration of the State Historical-Architectural Reserve Icherisheher, and the State Employment Agency of Azerbaijan's Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population. Alongside its cultural purpose, the project stimulates self-employment and entrepreneurship and creates jobs. Products made at the Centre now form part of the national gurama.az brand.
CRAFT, NOT COPY
The project was never meant as a mechanical recreation of an old technique. Craftswomen at the Centre are given fabrics that vary widely in texture, colour and pattern, and each chooses her own composition, colours and subject. The defining feature of any gurama piece is the personality of the woman who made it. The first cohort was seven women from Gala village, trained under Sevil Mammadova, a recognised contemporary gurama expert and veteran of many international exhibitions.
GALA VILLAGE
3,000+ years of settlement on the site, per archaeological data. 216 historical, archaeological and architectural monuments in the reserve. 1988: the year the reserve was formally declared. 17 ancient wells still in use within the reserve's water park.
A LIVING SITE
In 2008, with support from the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, an open-air archaeological-ethnographic museum complex was created on the reserve, built around Bronze Age settlement remains, rock paintings and artefacts excavated between 2010 and 2011. The complex also houses working blacksmithing, ceramics and carpet-weaving studios. In 2021, a water park opened across the site's 17 still-functioning ancient wells. The Centre also runs joint research with IRCICA, the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture under the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, studying gurama and patchwork traditions across the Islamic world.
"Any tradition is integral to the soul of its people." - Artegin Salamzade, Corresponding Member, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences