Exquisite Rugs, Exceptional Service: 530. N Lake Ave • 2019
An installation about Pasadena Rug Mart, established in 1932 and closed in 2017, commemorating this diasporic 20th Century shop as a 75 year personal, cultural and business archive of 530 N. Lake Avenue, Pasadena. It incorporated documentation and archival materials dating from the 1930s-2000s, as well as books, rugs, ephemera, yarn used for repairs, a c. 1932 neon sign, and other items telling the story of the space.
The shop, whose building is now vacant but was once owned by my uncle, was a physical collection and retail space that aligned with political and social histories of migration, labor, cultural identity and livelihood across eras in Southern California:
Arshia Fatima Haq sharing her own field recordings archive at closing event.
the 1910s, when the Craftsman-style home adjacent to the showroom was constructed;
the 1930s, when the showroom was opened by the Mart’s Armenian founders, the Evkhanians, who also designed and patented the cleaning equipment used onsite until the Lake Ave shop’s recent closure;
the 1950s, when the kitchen was remodeled;
the 1970s and 1980s, when the Iranian Revolution was the backdrop by which my uncle formed his career and took over the store;
post 9/11, with an American flag becoming a constant presence in the window.
The objects, of course, go even further back in time to Chinese export ceramics and 160 year old silk Kashan rugs woven in relief with gold thread to antique tribal Qashqai rugs that traveled with nomadic sheepherders as functional objects to create a portable home. The embedded narrative of these items throughout history, and even in today's fashion, is a visual signifier of wealth and class tied to emulating aesthetics of conquest and colonization. The daily reality was always the heavy skilled labor involved in their cleaning, moving, and repair as well as assimilation through self-orientalization.
>> Listen to an exhibition walk through with KCHUNG’s Performance Now
This installation was for two weeks at Human Resources LA and was accompanied by four presentations of found slides with translated annotations. A closing event welcomed artist Arshia Fatima Haq who generously offered to share some contemplative selections from her own field recording archive as an offering to the legacy of the space.
