Kaleidoscope: Transforming Motifs

You try to remember the future. A bird painted on the ceramic panel in a historical palace has found its place on the wall. The tiles of a church and a mosque have been painted on canvas. The pattern of a centuries-old ceramic plate appears before you on a velvet curtain.

Prominent motifs from Islamic art continue to shape contemporary productions with their symbolic conno- tations. The plant ornaments and geometric patterns seen in Kütahya tiles are used in ceramic objects such as vases and jugs as well as in

In his book exploring the cultural history of souvenirs, Rolf Potts discusses how such objects assume meaning through personal stories: Objects turn into memories with the stories they hold.