Gabbeh is a variety of Persian carpet, traditionally knotted by nomadic women. What’s special about it is that its abstract geometric patterns and strong, large-scale colors do not follow any particular specification. They develop individually from the moods and feelings of their creator, from the thoughts that go through her head while weaving. One could describe the Gabbeh weaver as a storyteller who inscribes her own life story and those of others in the threads, colors, and patterns of her carpet.

The Gabbeh ensemble draws inspiration from this concept: it picks up threads and brings them together. Its musical textures and shapes develop from the open space of improvisation and are rooted in the vital diversity of Iranian folklore. The result is a polyphonic fabric of remembered fragments of Persian children’s songs, travel narratives, and lifelines, as well as their reverberations in the Viennese diaspora. Two worlds, reflected many times, broken and put together anew.