A permanent exhibition of handicrafts was launched on Wednesday at the premises of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, during a ceremony in which selected artisans were also honored with the national award of excellence.
Marking the national heritage week (May 18-24), the event features over 750 handmade works of art that competed at the 2nd Fajr International Handicrafts and Traditional Arts Festival held from January 21-30.
ICHHTO head Ali Asghar Mounesan honored the winners of the festival with the national award of excellence for handicrafts, ILNA reported.
"The award encourages the competitive spirit among artisans and helps promote quality," Mounesan said.
Tapping the Potential
Speaking at the ceremony, Mounesan emphasized the handicrafts' potential for creating job opportunities and earning added value with the least amount of investment.
"Although highly profitable, the handicrafts industry faces a big shortcoming in marketing," the official said.
"Handmade artworks should make it to national and international markets; since the last Iranian year (ended March 20) the plan to help the industry find a niche in the economy has stayed on the target," Mounesan noted.
He also underlined the need for "variety in design" to meet the "customers' taste". Artists, according to the official, would do well to take account of what the customers prefer and improve the popularity of their works by diversifying designs.
"Branding is the other strategy in the field that can preserve and add to the value of handmade arts," Mounesan said, adding that handicrafts should not be wholesaled.
Establishing permanent authorized gift shops and exhibits across the country, as those already opened in Tabriz and Kermanshah, are among heritage authorities' first steps toward the goal.
In addition, Mounesan said one of the buildings at Sa'adabad Palace Complex in North Tehran has been designated to the handicrafts sector and will soon open as a museum of handicrafts in the complex.
Promising Growth
Speaking at the ceremony, Pouya Mahmoudian, director of Trade and Exports Office at ICHHTO, pointed to a 19% increase in handicrafts exports and a 25% rise in domestic sales in the last Iranian year compared to the year before.
"Holding two New Year handicrafts sales festivals in the last month of the previous year attracted a huge attention from both the public and officials," Mahmoudian said.
Furthermore, the Norouz handicrafts exhibition which was held in the early days of the New Year with over 10,000 pavilions in 31 provinces, fetched over 63 billion rials ($1.5m) registering a 45% increase in revenues compared to the last year's event.
"Handicrafts export value also increased by 69% over the first month of the current year (ended April 20), compared to the last year's corresponding period," Mahmoudian said, elated at the noticeable gain against a backdrop of an underperforming economy.
Int'l Scope
Abdolmajid Sharifzadeh, head of Research Institute for Culture, Art and Communication, pointed to the importance of quality when it comes to competing with foreign products, such as the contest to win the UNESCO's Award of Excellence for Handicrafts.
He also said, "Iran's hosting of the final evaluation ceremony of World Craft Council's Award of Excellence for Handicrafts in the Asia Pacific region in early August is considered a great opportunity to promote Iranian art at the international level."
Iran has participated in the contest with a collection of 70 top works of art.
Established by UNESCO in 2001, the event aims to encourage artisans to produce handicrafts using traditional skills, patterns and themes in an innovative way in order to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the traditions and skills.
