Repatriation of Stephanie Belfrage's Batak Textile Collection and Ibu Devi's Resolve

I was deeply moved when Stephanie Belfrage said that she and her husband George were going to try to come to the repatriation ceremony of their Batak textiles. The arrived in Jakarta late on Thursday night and on Friday morning I was with them in their hotel lobby. 

Kamaruddin Simanjuntak had kindly loaned us one of his cars and so I was able to take Stephanie and George to visit their friend Mara Soekarno. (I had already been there a few days earlier to fetch Stephanie's textiles and bring them for accessioning to Museum Tekstil.) The lunch that Mara offered us was extraordinarily delicious!! And Stephanie was able to meet other friends from that previous moment in her life when she lived in Jakarta.

From Mara's house, we pushed on through dense traffic to Museum Tekstil where we met Pak Indra, the director, and Ibu Mis'Ari, the executive chef. The best part was the attendance of Ibu Devi Pandjaitan, a wealthy champion of Batak culture and Batak youth. She explained the need for a formal organization that would promote and protect Batak textiles. 

Stephanie's textiles are nice, but not exceptional. What makes her collection brilliant is what Stephanie has done with it. She has given it back to Indonesia where it serves as an inspiration to others to donate their collections as well. Her collection has 'primed the pump' as it were. And it was the singular factor that inspired Ibu Devi Panjaitan's resolve to set up a formal Batak textile group. She announced this during the afternoon repatriation ceremony on the first day of our Taman Mini event. Afterwards I said to MJA Nashir, "If only this is the result of Pulang Kampung III, it has already been a singular success." And "The erection of this body to protect and promote Batak textiles could have a longer-lasting influence than anything else that we have done." May this council of Batak textiles act wisely.

The repatriation of Stephanie's textiles was the perfect complement to our launch of Pulang Kampung III. Both are about bringing energy back to the villages, whatever the form.

3. Beautiful Old Ulos will turn Back to the Villages III into a Celebration of the Batak Weaving Arts

A few blogs ago, I wrote about Stephanie Belfrage, the thoughtful Australian woman who decided to return her Indonesian batiks to Java. That sparked a short repatriation ceremony in which her batiks were gifted to Museum Batik in Pekalongan, a ceremony made possible through the efforts of the non-profit Pekalongan Heritage Community and especially Arif Dirhamzah.

What I didn’t mention in the blog was that Stephanie originally contacted me about her Batak textile collection and not her batik textile collection. Pulang Kampung III is, in part, my response  to her request to have the textiles go back to Tano Batak. They are to be housed permanently and well in Jakarta’s Museum Tekstil, but first, this summer, they will join the Back to the Villages III tour and sail around Lake Toba where they will delight and inspire all who see them.

I saw Stephanie's textiles for the first time in Jakarta with
Lasma Sitanggang, my Batak 'daughter'.

I commend the direction and staff of Jakarta’s Museum Tekstil for their decision to join us. If the people can’t make it to the museum, let the museum go to the people.  Museum Tekstil in Jakarta is an enthusiastically engaged institution that values not just the work of indigenous weavers, but also the weavers themselves. They do everything in their power to encourage the weaving arts in the archipelago. This time, they are taking it upon themselves to transport Stephanie’s textiles to North Sumatra and set up a makeshift exhibition in a different village on each day of the journey. It will be a lot of work, but they do not shy away from hard work.

Room devoted to weaving equipment in
Jakarta's Museum Tekstil

I hope and expect that the Back to the Villages exhibition series will be mutually inspiring. The staff of Museum Tekstil will get to know the Batak through their reactions to the textiles, and the Batak will be given the opportunity to reflect on the changes in their weaving arts. Stated more directly and clearly, they will be confronted by the disappearance of their woven heritage and it will undoubtedly give them pause.

I am thrilled with the two focuses of the upcoming Back to the Villages journey: film and textiles. What could be more synergetic? The film is about ancient textile techniques and there will be a textile exhibition to complement and support it. The addition of the textile exhibition has turned Back to the Villages III into a celebration of the Batak weaving arts.

Who is Ibu Stephanie?

Stephanie Belfrage, the Australian woman who gave her beautiful batik textiles back to Indonesia, is "one of the warmest and most generous spirits you could wish to meet" according to a friend of hers. This warmth has shone through all of the correspondence that I have had with her.

Stephanie Belfrage with her husband and one of her hand-made quilts.

In addition to this, I know her through a short blurb that she wrote  for the big repatriation event in Pekalongan. Here it is:

In 1971, I left Australia, newly married, for Paris.  Seven years later, we packed up our young family and set out for Jakarta.  There was a marked contrast in lifestyle but the whole family fell in love with the people, the landscape and the vibrant Indonesian culture, and embraced it all with open arms. 

We wasted no time in learning Bahasa Indonesia, and quickly made friends among both Indonesian colleagues and fellow expats.  I became involved in a number of projects, all related in some way to textiles.  I joined a quilting group and through it learned about the different batik textiles.  I was on a committee that set up a shop, ‘The Red Feather’, to provide skills and income for the paraplegic residents of the Wisma Cheshire Home in Cilandak, Jakarta.  We taught the residents basic English and Accounting.  The girls learned to cut and sew patchwork items.  The boys made superb dolls’ houses.  The shop was very successful and enabled the residents to achieve a degree of independence, which would not otherwise have been possible for them.  (I am not sure whether or not the shop is still functioning). 

Batak textiles from North Sumatra were first introduced to me through the  Ganesha Society (now called the Heritage Society??) where I also met Batak people living in Jakarta.  I then began to collect their textiles,  learning about the significance of  ulos within Batak culture.  This study became part of a lecture programme of  the Ganesha Society

Double ikat weaving, unique to the village of Tenganan, was introduced to me in regular sojourns at Ibu Oka’s Ashram in Candi Dasa, East Bali. A visit to the Batak homeland of Samosir in North Sumatra expanded my knowledge of their textiles (ulos). Attendance at a traditional funeral ceremony in Sulawesi resulted in the acquisition of one of the most valued textiles in my collection, which has recently been most welcomed by the Jakarta Textile Museum and is now, as I understand it,  part of the current exhibition of Torajan textiles.  Travel to Cirebon and Linggar Jati in 1985 to visit the home of the beautiful Pekalongan batiks and to watch them being created in the traditional workshops, led to my exposure to yet another variety of Indonesian textile.

Everywhere we went, we collected textiles.  The everyday ones, were cut and used in patchwork quilts as shown in the photo attached.  When we left Indonesia in 1986, the textiles and patchwork quilts came with us.  They have been much admired and much loved since then.

However, life goes on.  This year we have moved to a smaller space and foremost on my mind was what to do with the textiles.  Of the options available, returning them to their original home seemed by far the most satisfying.  Indonesia had been so welcoming to us, introducing us to wider cultural  perspectives, which in turn invited us to reflect on our own. Thanks to modern technology, I ‘met’ Dr. Sandra Niessin, who told me about her Pulang Kampung project, which I immediately identified with.  With Sandra’s guidance and the help of Mrs. Mara Soekarno, Dr. Anne Conduit, Mr. Greg Roberts and Mr. Ian Reed, all the textiles are now returning home.

Stephanie's photograph was projected on the wall behind us  as I 
spoke about the spirit of repatriation in Pekalongan's 
Batik Museum