All tagged weaving

Bamboo Crafts Development Projects in Indonesia: Who to Develop? What is to be Developed?

Bamboo Crafts Development Projects in Indonesia: Who to Develop? What is to be Developed?

Amira Rahardiani
Articles

The crafts development project model has played a crucial role in developing Indonesian socio-economic situations at the communal, regional and national levels. The top-down development project model adopted by the government has caused an overlap of development systems among agencies trying to reach the grassroots levels for the past three decades. Yet, the attempt to “develop” craft industries inevitably conflicts with preserving producers’ work and customs. This article unveils subject-object relations in a traditional bamboo cottage industry in Cikiray Hamlets, West Java, where the ecological factors around the hamlets shape the daily and seasonal routines of the craftspeople involved in commodifying their crafts.

Gringsing Fabric as Spatial Cosmology and Relation-making

Gringsing Fabric as Spatial Cosmology and Relation-making

Lira Anindita Utami
Articles

This article is based on an extensive study of the textile-making culture of Tenganan Pagringsingan, a village located in the region of Karangasem in the southeastern part of Bali island in Indonesia. In this village, a type of double-ikat woven textile called Gringsing has been produced for generations by the Bali Aga (the indigenous Balinese). It is believed to be a sacred healer and is highly sanctified by both the producing community and the rest of the Balinese Hindu community.

Handling Textiles: Rebuilding Object Lives in Museums

Handling Textiles: Rebuilding Object Lives in Museums

Emily A. Levick
Articles

Textiles are imbued with the multifaceted and complex values, beliefs, and ideals of the cultures in which they were produced and consumed. They have been used as clothing, shelter, and ornament, and are often remade and repurposed throughout their ‘lives’, constantly acquiring new layers of meaning along the way. As such, they are ideal media for museums attempting to widen their audience reach and more effectively represent world history and culture. How can museums rebuild the stories and lives of textiles in exhibits? This essay explores the possibility of building connections between visitors and textiles through multisensory engagement and, in doing so, suggests the remaking of the museum experience.

The Color of Memory – Claire Le Pape’s Giottoesque

The Color of Memory – Claire Le Pape’s Giottoesque

Jessica Hughes and Urmila Mohan
Curatorial Essays

A curatorial essay accompanying the digital exhibit “The Color of Memory – Claire Le Pape’s Giottoesques” on a body of work by the French artist Claire Le pape, inspired by the frescos of the Italian painter Giotto. This essay places us on a voyage of discovery, to see color as a passionate muse for artists across widely differing centuries, worlds and materials. Through Le Pape’s video testimonials and intricate tapestries woven out of fishing twine we see how color and religion overlap to create spaces of immersive and transcendental experience. Le Pape’s series of weavings called ‘Giottoesques’ showcase the ability of colorful materials to sensorially evoke the numinous as well as reference the artist’s own religiosity or spirituality.