In COVER’s third podcast, editor Lucy Upward discusses Lila Valadan’s upcoming exhibition ‘Night Time in a Palace’—planned for Domotex Hanover 2024—with Shayan Naziri, who explains the inspiration behind the ‘carpet wonderland’ installation and the company’s future exhibition plans.
When Lila Valadan of the eponymous Hamburg-based rug brand put on the spectacular ‘The 4 Seasons by Lila Valadan’ installation at Domotex Hanover in January 2020, most visitors were blown away by the scale and detail of the display. It filled four large constructed rooms. In my review in COVER 58, I wrote, ‘Words do not do justice to Valadan’s exhibition, which was designed with all the senses in mind and was truly something out of the ordinary.’ I mused on whether we’d see other such exhibitions at the 2021 show (little did I know COVID-19 was about to go global) and asked what could possibly trump that display. It seems that Valadan has the answer for Domotex 2024.
In planning for two years, at Domotex Hannover 2024, Lila Valadan and her son Shayan Naziri are to put on an exhibition to rival their previous endeavours. Based on a Persian painting of the same name, ‘Night Time in a Palace’ is set to be a mesmerising experience looking at traditions, weaving, art and emotion.
In this interview Shayan Naziri explains that the exhibition will be a chain of rooms, and for each room a new rug has been designed. ‘Around each rug a world has been created’ he says. ‘People will leave with a lot of things to think about.’ Requiring two years’ of planning, the concept has been a real labour of love for Lila and Shayan. They aim to attract people in the rug world and beyond. ‘If you want to make our world bigger you have to talk to people outside of our world,’ Shayan adds. ‘You have to create things that people are not expecting.’
‘Night Time in a Palace’ will be at Domotex Hannover, Hall 3, 12–14 January 2024
Click below to listen to the full podcast ‘COVER Conversations: 03 Lila Valadan’s ‘Night Time in a Palace’ at Domotex 2024’ on Spotify and SoundCloud.
