Reviving Minangkabau Songket

In 1996, Bernhard Bart, a Swiss architect who was learning Indonesian in Padang, Indonesia, made a sketch of an old, intricate Minangkabau songket on display at the Padang Museum. When he attempted to find a similar weaving in the markets of Pandai Sikek and Payakumbuh, he found only poor-quality textiles with simplified patterns. Intrigued, Bart began to research Minangkabau songket, eventually photographing around 1500 pieces, including many in museums in Indonesia and Europe. Along the way, he became convinced that he had to do something to keep the tradition alive.
Minangkabau songket had its golden age from 1850-1920, when highly complex patterns were woven from the finest silk and metallic threads. After World War I, economic crises and natural disasters led to decline and finally, with the Japanese occupation in 1942, Minangkabau songket weaving came to a complete standstill. 

Individual Minangkabau women began weaving again in the 1960s, but mothers had failed to pass the traditional patterns and techniques to a generation of daughters, and the new weavers could not replicate the fineness and variety of the old motifs. Some of the old patterns in Koto Gadang, for example, required up to 180 supplementary weft threads. However, the weavings that Bart found in the markets had vastly simplified patterns, using only 5 to 35 different pattern threads.

The Art of Batik Gedhog

Amid the dazzling variety of batik available in Indonesia, batik gedhog or Tuban batik, as it is also known, stands out because of its rough, handwoven cotton fabric and its simple indigo-blue and morinda-red patterns representing cotton, rice, edible gourds, creeping vines, small birds, and phoenixes.

Batik gedhog is produced in the rural village of Kerek,100 kilometers west of Surabaya and a few kilometers west of the city of Tuban in East Java. Kerek is the only place in Indonesia where cotton is still grown, spun, dyed, woven, and hand-batiked all in one place.

From the 9^th century until the early 1600s, Tuban was the most important port in Java, trading in spices, dyewoods, silks and porcelains from China, patterned cotton and silk from India, as well as its own cotton yarns and textiles. However, in 1619, Tuban was conquered by the Mataram Sultan Agung Hanyakrakusuma, who chose Jepara as his main port, and shortly thereafter the Dutch set up Batavia (today Jakarta) as their center of trade. Tuban quickly faded from history, and languished in obscurity and poverty for almost 400 years...

Read more: http://nowjakarta.co.id/the-art-of-batik-gedhog

Text by Marianne Scholte

The Sacred Tradition of Baduy Textiles

The Kanekes people – better known as Baduy – live in the Kanekes villages in the mountainous Kedeng region of Banten Province. An ancient Sundanese-speaking people, the Baduy have been living in these villages for centuries, perhaps since the 5^th century. Visitors can only enter their territory, which is marked by 179 points such as rock outcroppings, a river, tree or hill, after obtaining a travel permit at the border town of Ciboleger.Life among the Kanekes is ordered by a traditional philosophy that calls for a life of prayers (recited in old Sundanese in front of burning incense) for the good of humanity, self-sufficiency, and harmony with nature – they therefore reject modern conveniences and all things that do not come from within their own territory. 

Those living in the three urang tangtu (white or Inner Baduy) villages strictly follow the ancient traditions and religious beliefs. They are not allowed to cut their hair or use public transportation, for example, so that when they venture to Jakarta, they walk barefoot for three days. Non-Indonesians cannot enter the Inner Baduy villages...

Read more:  http://nowjakarta.co.id/the-sacred-tradition-of-baduy-textiless
text by Marianne Scholte 

The Mystery of Jambi Batik

Jambi, on the east coast of central Sumatra, Indonesia, has a textile tradition shrouded in mystery. In fact, Jambi seems to have had two textile traditions: the tradition of lembato yellow and indigo blue batiks discovered by the Dutch in the 1920s – which nearly died out by the time the Japanese invaded in 1942 – and an older, perhaps ancient tradition of morinda red cloths that all but disappeared in the mid-19^th century. Nevertheless, Jambi batik is again flourishing today, thanks to the persistence of a handful of women who carried the tradition through the worst of times.

Jambi was an important trading center from at least the 7th century CE and is believed to have been the site of the Hindu-Buddhist kingdom of Melayu. The fine imported cottons and silks from China, India, Java, and the Arab world were highly valued by the royal families, while simpler cloths were exchanged for goods such as wax, resin, ivory, and incense from upstream people in the interior. By the 16th century, Dutch and English ships were also arriving at the Jambi Sultanate to trade in Indian cloth and pepper....

Read more:  http://nowjakarta.co.id/the-mystery-of-jambi-batik                       text by Marianne Scholte

Toraja Melo Showcases Lives of Women Weavers

Sole Oha, a special exhibition demonstrating the lives of women weavers in Sulawesi and Flores, opened at Jakarta’s Textile Museum in Tanah Abang on November 18, 2017. Several exhibition rooms were turned into homes of weavers from the islands of Adonara and Lembata, as well as homes of Torajanese weavers from Sa’dan and Mamasa in Sulawesi. Museum visitors had a unique opportunity to browse through weavers’ homes, watch weavers at and learn about the lives of Indonesian weavers and the challenges they face – and of course to admire hand-loomed textiles from Sulawesi and Flores.

The exhibition was organized by Toraja Melo, a social enterprise that aims to improve the lives of rural women weaver artisans in Indonesia and to rejuvenate the art and culture of Indonesian hand-woven cloth. Toraja Melo (which means ‘beautiful Toraja’) was founded by Dinny Jusuf, a former corporate banker for Citibank and former Secretary General of Komnas Perempuan (National Commission on Anti Violence Against Women), and her sister, fashion designer Nina Jusuf, who co-founded the National Organization of Asian Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence.
                                           

Dinny Jusuf (center back) with weavers

Dinny conceived the idea of Toraja Melo in 2008, while building a house in South Sulawesi with her Torajanese husband. Exploring the
surrounding villages of Sa’dan, one of Sulawesi’s weaving centers, she was struck by the fact that no one was buying the beautiful Torajan hand-loomed textiles – the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, the Poso riots, and the 2002 Bali bombings had put an end to tourism in Sulawesi. Furthermore, the Torajanese did not wear their own weaving in daily life (unlike, for example, the people of Flores and Sumba). 

Museum Tekstil Jakarta: Indonesia’s Textile Heritage

                                                                                                                 
An oasis of beauty and tranquility in the bustling Tanah Abang district of Jakarta, the Museum Tekstil Jakarta offers visitors a captivating window into the world of traditional Indonesian textiles. The Museum’s main building, a graceful early-19^th-century structure with Tuscan columns and fluted pilasters, was once used as headquarters of the Pioneer Youth Front and the Civil Defense Force in the struggle to defend Indonesia's newly proclaimed independence. Today this national monument houses display rooms where rotating exhibitions showcase textiles from the museum’s own collection or those of private collectors. The museum also periodically exhibits the work of national and international textile artists.                                                           

In 1976, at a time when Indonesia’s textile traditions were in decline, leading Indonesians banded together under the leadership of then Governor of Jakarta, Ali Sadikin, in order to conserve Indonesia’s textile tradition and encourage public appreciation of this vital part of Indonesia’s cultural heritage. The collection, which comprises some 2800 valuable and rare textiles from all over Indonesia, got its start when members of Himpunan Wastraprema (Society of Textile Lovers) donated 500 high-value textiles from their private collections.

Next to the Muesum Tekstil’s main building is the Batik Gallery, which was opened on October 2, 2010, exactly one year after UNESCO recognized Indonesian batik as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In the Batik Gallery, visitors can admire classic and contemporary batiks belonging to Yayasan Batik Indonesia and its members. Each room focuses on a particular area of batik production in Indonesia.