Photo by Zvonimir Bebek, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
During the 2002 Silk Road program, the Mall became a modern version of the ancient Eurasian trading route. Visitors could stroll from the towering Nara Gate at the eastern edge toward an open Venetian Piazza to the west. Beautiful Turkish çini plates helped lure visitors into the Ceramics Courtyard.
Mounted in 2002, The Silk Road remains a standout program
Silk Road was the perfect Festival to follow the events of September 11, 2001. Although planning had begun several years earlier, the program’s theme of “Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust” tied past and present together. Yo-Yo Ma, the visionary cellist and artistic director of the Silk Road Project, Inc., was a presenting partner. Through his own travels and work in different musical styles, he was captivated by the legendary trade route and how music traveled and changed along it.
To talk to anyone who attended the 2002 Festival is to hear a long string of superlatives. Richard Kurin, Center director at the time, reported that “more than 400 artists, cooks, musicians, and scholars—Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs—from more than two dozen nations, speaking more than thirty languages” traveled to Washington that year. Program curator Richard Kennedy recalled, “Never before has a Festival been devoted to one topic; never before has a Festival offered such research, conceptual, and logistical challenges… It has been a daunting but exhilarating effort.” Over one million people attended.
Looking east towards the Nara Gate (and Washington Monument).
Photo by Jeff Tinsley
Istanbul Crossroads.
Photo by Claudia Telliho, Smithsonian
Painted Pakistani truck.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
Central Asian Textiles in Carpets area.
Photo by Claudia Telliho, Smithsonian
Silk ikat weaver from Uzbekistan working on a hand loom.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
Hasan al Kazzan’s family has been in the glass-blowing trade in Syria for 400 years.
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
Final words are delivered by site designer Rajeev Sethi (standing center left), Silk Road Project director Yo-Yo Ma (seated with cello), and Richard Kurin, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage director (speaking).
Photographer unknown, Smithsonian
The Silk Road program remains a singular event in the Festival’s history.
The twenty-acre Festival site was transformed into its own Silk Road crossroads by innovative designer Rajeev Sethi. Visitors could travel east or west between legendary landmarks such as the Xi’an Tower in China or Samarkand Square in Uzbekistan. Crafts flanked the landmarks in material-themed pavilions: Silk Grove, Paper Garden, Ceramics Courtyard. In the courtyard, Turkish ceramicists displayed their wares alongside Chinese, Japanese, and Bangladeshi artisans. Advisor Henry Glassie helped visitors understand what they were seeing in the modern Islamic çini wares:
“Turkish potters at first imitated the blue-and-white porcelain of Jingdezhen [China]. Then in a surging series of innovations, they made it their own in the sixteenth century, adding new colors, notably a luscious tomato red, and pushing the designs toward natural form and Islamic reference.”
Mehmet Gürsoy was one of four Turkish ceramicists at the Festival. His studio is located in Kütahya, where he is known as a teacher and entrepreneur. An online exhibition about his work is included below.
—Erin Younger, exhibition curator
Mehmet Gürsoy stands in front of a display of çini plates in the Ceramics Courtyard.
