Endangered Textile Design: Will we make room for it to survive?

The more I learn about the position of weavers in Indonesia, the more I feel concern that they are no longer in a position to continue to grow their design traditions. I especially see the drastic effects of poverty. How can a weaver allow her imagination to take flight when she is worried about where school fees will come from, how she can pay for medicine for her sick husband and whether the weather will allow her to reap a sufficient harvest? Moreover, when she weaves, she cannot hope to earn nearly what she deserves for her time and effort. These days she must compete with mechanical looms that appropriate her heritage designs. To corner an external market, she is encouraged to work within an aesthetic genre that is not hers; her own cultural market is too poor to pay for her best work. When the fashion world appropriates her designs, she is often demoted to the role of underpaid labourer if she is involved in the process at all. She is definitely between several rocks and a hard place. This is especially painful when compounded with the awareness that these exquisite, rich Indonesian woven traditions are the result of the skill and creativity of generations upon generations of village weavers. Does this mean that these traditions are doomed to come to a halt forever? Surely computer generated 'indigenous' designs are not the answer! What about creating room for the weaver through respect, a living wage, market improvement, appropriate policy that protects her role as creator of her own heritage!

Dr. Geneviève Duggan (field area: Savu) and I decided that we wanted to call badly needed attention to these issues. Luckily we are able to do that within the context of ICAS, the International Convention of Asian Studies at Leiden in July 2019. We will be chairing a Roundtable devoted to the topic. This is the introduction that we wrote for our event.

How indigenous weavers create design in their communities has not been sufficiently studied. 

The topic has become urgent because indigenous weaving traditions are in sharp decline.  

The goal of the Roundtable on Endangered Textile Design is to explore the cultural nature of indigenous textile design creation. The topic has been selected on the understanding that the loss of indigenous design is not inevitable, but the result of identifiable social forces, hence the possibility of remedial strategies.

The Roundtable will also examine exogenous forces that have an impact on indigenous design production. Indigenous weavers currently suffer from a loss of social and economic room to continue to grow their design traditions. Enclosures, appropriations, and 'design assistance' from exogenous worlds need to be evaluated for their effect on weaver latitude. 

The Roundtable is set up to encourage discussion, generate feedback and elicit additional information. Will a consensus of concern emerge? Can a basis for policy recommendations be established?

I Gave a Teg Talk!

No, that’s not a spelling error. TEG stands for Textile Enthusiasts Group and the group gathers in Singapore.

It was Genevieve Duggan, well known for her book, Ikats of Savu (2001, White Lotus Press) who got the ball rolling. I was going to drop in for a day in Singapore on my way home from Jakarta anyway, so, she said, why not get to know the textile enthusiasts in Singapore while I was there? Why not, indeed! I would have my exhibition textiles with me, and the co-ordinator of this TEG event, Shook Fong Tan, and her husband would be kind enough to pick me (with my heavy bags) up at the airport.

Photo by Lewa Pardomuan of me delivering my TEG Talk

The obvious thing to talk about, it seemed to me, would be the Pulang Kampung expedition and the upshot of the journey. I had all of MJA Nashir’s pictures with me to make a slide show and one of Restuala Namora Pakpahan’s first “revival textiles” from Muara coloured red with natural dye. He gave it to me just before I left Jakarta to remind me that I am the “International Ambassador of Sopo Sorha Harungguan”. I wanted to highlight the importance of bringing research findings back to the peoples from whom the information originated: they who are so deserving, have so little access to libraries and knowledge about their own culture and history, and yet are more often than not forgotten when it comes to “dissemination of findings”.

It was a warm group of enthusiasts (the name fits!), many of whom clearly had a very sophisticated level of knowledge. Spontaneously, I asked them for support for Restuala’s revival work. I had shared with them the importance of North-South partnerships when it comes to keeping indigenous art/craft traditions alive, so I decided to “walk the talk.” The donations that flowed in were so generous that I was gratified and touched.

I was pleased that Lewa Pardomuan, a new acquaintance and passionate textile collector, was in the room as well as Kim Jane Saunders (author of Contemporary Tie and Dye Textiles of Indonesia, 1997) with whom I had apparently corresponded in years past. A new acquaintance was Yvonne Koh, who contacted me through my website shortly before my talk. Because she lived in Singapore, it was possible for her to attend. She turns out to be an inveterate blogger, so I have been able to get to know her a little bit after the fact. These three people, and many more in the room, shared my sense of urgency for undertaking action to keep indigenous weaving traditions alive.

The TEG group kindly arranged for me to pre-view the spectacular Patterns of Trade: Indian Textiles For Export, 1400–1900 exhibition (15 Nov 2011 - 03 Jun 2012) in the Asian Civilizations Museum just after my talk. The tour with the Southeast Asia curator, David Henkel, was a rather special privilege as the exhibition had not yet opened. Indeed, I would not have wanted to miss it. It was inspiring, spell-binding and endlessly insightful to witness dozens of Indian trade textiles together in one place.

At the end of the day, Digna Ryan, one of the co-ordinators of the TEG group, invited some of us to dinner in her beautiful home: a gracious and delicious send-off before settling into a night of flying.

Thank you, TEG Singapore for an excellent experience.