Ikat-The Woven Poetry of Weft and Warp

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2021

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the cc by-nc 4.0 license. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 177 (2021) 62-93 bki brill.com/bki

Weaving, Guardian of Identity, 2018

This book began with the struggles of the women of The Three Rocks: Mollo, Amanatun, and Amanuban, in South Central Timor Regency (TTS). All of the women weavers fought to stave off environmental catastrophy, in the form of a marble mining company, which they drove out with their looms -- using weaving as a weapon. Their actions and stories inspired us to do the fieldwork. We encountered many other, overlapping realities along the way, realizing the full importance of weaving for the Timorese as a cultural identity, as guardian of their natural surroundings, as an economic tool, and as an archive of the knowledge and experiences that continue to amount.

Fusion Journal, 2020

Despite almost universal participation in textile use, an understanding of the fundamentals of textile construction within the global north appears to be increasingly superficial. The typical person is largely unexposed to the making process of textiles and textile products, as production is outsourced to locations distant from the final user. In recent years, fashion and textile designers have attempted to engage users in their making processes through the use of various supporting media. My intention is not to disregard the production of additional media, but to propose a turn to utilising the textile itself as the site for further user engagement. In this article I reflect on my experiences working with weavers in rural Bangladesh as part of my creative practice and postgraduate research. There, through multisensorial observation, I began to see each 'weaving' (noun/verb) not as a flat thing but as a multidimensional changescape (Gibson vii). Ephemeral moments occurring during the making process were found to materialise within each weaving, acting as a physical record of the spatial, temporal and personal traces of making. Using photography, these traces have been visually amplified in order to involve each weaving in the narration of its own creation.

2015

is based on the integration of 5 Austronesian cultural complexes:  Backstrap loom weaving,  Tie-dye (resist dye) techniques,  Bast production through fiber extraction from abaca (Musa textilis),  Dye and mordant extraction from plant and mineral sources, and  A spiritual cultural depiction of the transmutation of cosmic forces.  There are typical Austronesian ikat dyes (colors), motifs, fibers, traditions, applications and uses.  The presence of other resist dye methods among Austronesians such as "tritik", "plangi", "cerita" and "batik" argues for the origins of ikat weaving in Southeast Asia.  The presence of the simplest to the most complex ikat techniques found among Austronesians argues for its antiquity and origins in Southeast Asia.  The widespread practice of ikat weaving across Austronesian communities argues for its origins in Southeast Asia.  The pioneering maritime lifeways of Austronesians allowed ikat's spread throughout the world.  The trade routes established by Austronesians paved the way for the Spice Trade, Maritime Silk Route and the China-India-Mediterranean Trade Continuum.  Southeast Asia will become a pivotal nexus in this Trade Continuum.  A manifestation of this Trade Continuum is the spread and development of ikat. Ikat can be found in all coastal regions of this Trade Continuum, areas within the established expansion and exploration routes and reach of Austronesians.  Intermediate forms of ikat weaves can be found in the tie-dyed grass skirts of Papua New Guinea.  Ikat design motifs can be traced to earlier pottery, tattoo, mat, basket and bark cloth traditions. The motifs represent a belief system specific to Austronesians.  There is no substitute in the use of the backstrap loom in the production of intricate and complex ikat weaves.  The high level of craftsmanship of ikat evolved due to its strong association with ancient spiritual beliefs of Austronesians.  Ikat weaves in South America arrived in two waves, during the pre-Columbian era, particularly in Peru/Chile from Austronesian Polynesians and during the colonial era in Guatemala and Mexico from the Philippines.  Linguistic evidence supports the Austronesian origins of ikat weaving and backstrap looms in South America.

Women's Cradle Song: A crowd of tiny chicks keep cheeping from back of the room of a longhouse, calling for a handful of feed, the broken tips of the pounded padi. Why our tears, my friend, coursing wildly down our cheeks and again brimming, rolling, dropping? As we closely look at each separate strand, following the design of the mat; as we begin weaving the form of the balai belantan blanket; as we make ready and roll the fibres, so dark red in color, in order to weave from memory the ampang sebayan blanket. (Rubenstein 1985:88) In this paper I want to conduct an exploration into the meaning, centrality, and anatomy of artmaking in an indigenous tribal culture on the third largest island in the world. Due to the processes of colonialism, modernization and urbanization, this traditional culture has now largely disappeared; it developed and matured in the shelter of a rainforest world which is near-extinct. This is not a strictly historical paper, nor is it an attempt at ethnography: this text exists in a tenuous space between ethno-aesthetics and art history. I hope to conjure up a multifaceted picture

TEXTILES AND CLOTHING ALONG THE SILK ROADS. Published in 2022 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2022

The history of textiles is replete with numerous bright pages, with ikatsresist-dyed fabrics-being one of them. Such fabrics were known in Central and

2017

With contributions by Serat Maharaj, Julia Gwendolyne Schneider, Dorothee Albrecht, Rika Frank, Verina Gfader, Archana Hande, Hans Hamid Rasmussen, Asa Sonjasdotter, Zille Homma Hamid and Kirsti Willemse.

Textile & leather review, 2023

The Asante Kente is unquestionably the most popular and best-known of all African textiles. It has attracted the attention of many for centuries due to its uniqueness. The aesthetic appeal of Kente has been significantly improved over the years as a result of variations in design and production techniques. However, its design and production could be further improved and enhanced for the Asante Traditional Kente weaving industry to meet contemporary standards and market demands. Hence, this study sought to innovatively incorporate the Ikat technique -a patchy yarn dyeing decorative technique into the Asante traditional Kente weaving. The researchers utilized the studio-based research design under the qualitative research approach. The procedural steps in the Double Helix of Praxis-Exergesis Model which consisted of exploration, production, and evaluation, were adopted for the study. Personal interview was the principal data collection instrument used in collecting data from 12 purposefully sampled traditional Asante Kente weavers from six different communities in the Ashanti region of Ghana. The findings of the study revealed the possibility of fusing the two cloth production techniques to produce one common cloth that was named IKKente. The study recommends that this yarn decoration method should be encouraged among dyers and weavers to boost the local weaving industry in Ghana.

Knitting is a slow, rhythmic crafting process that reflects on the knitter's skilled practice and embodied knowledge. Would it be possible to translate this knowledge into another language (that of music)? The key objectives of this paper is to analyse the role of the craftsman (knitter) and how it is influenced when the expressive domain of knitting is altered into music and to investigate how an auditory feedback, which makes the knitters aware of their bodily movement, may affect their performance and trigger their creativity. The research is an ongoing process of multiple iterations based on action research and entails cycles of simultaneous data collection and analysis, which is based on the grounded theory methods of noting, coding and memoing. As a result, three different instruments (knittstruments) were assembled and tested in three different environments. The analysis from the data collected suggests substantial alterations in the knitters performance due to audio feedback at both an individual and group level and improvisation in the process of making. The contribution of this research is a further examination of knitting practices, focused on the relation between creativity and skill, building upon the knitter's embodied knowledge.

This essay posits that the simple process of bringing two divergent threads together to form cloth is a powerful endeavour. Informed by ancient craft, technique and metaphor the act of weaving remains to this day a powerful tool to express complex ideas and to tangibly illustrate beauty and abstraction. As a weave major, I am interested in exploring the transformative power of weaving in my practice as an emerging designer and also the broader discourse of artisanship and art. This essay investigates the transformative power of weaving through three key themes: i) Time honoured metaphor; ii) Politicising materiality and process through reconceptualising constructions of femininity, non- western cultures and modern art, and iii) Future potential through an exploration of domain shifts. Particular reference is made to the pervasiveness of weaving as a metaphor in ancient and modern vernaculars and how this has traversed time and space to maintain its relevancy today. The complex relationship between women and textiles will briefly be discussed in relation to woman’s traditional role as child-rearer and how this has inextricably linked women with textiles. The political potential of weaving will be explored in the context of the Fiber Arts movement emerging in the 1960s and spearheaded by Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larson. The pioneering work of Lenore Tawney will be discussed in relation to her ‘open warp’ technique, which proved to be controversial for defying categorisation both within the modern art context and also within the weaving fraternity. The work of Anni Albers and Sheila Hicks is then examined within a political framework, which sought to challenge the dominant modern art praxis denying women and non-western people their place as artists within their own right. Working outside this system and co-creating with native weaving practitioners, Albers and Hicks were engaged in a political act. Particular reference is made to Albers’ latter works ‘Monte Alban’ and ‘Ancient Writing’, where her linguistic sensibility was innovatively woven into the pieces. This complex array of meaning and codes became a signature of her work as an artist, weaver and designer. Hicks’ works are further examined in relation to her pioneering spirit living amidst the sexual and cultural revolution of the 1960s. Her extensive travels and observations of different societies and their cultural practices informed her work with an ethnographic quality challenging the status quo. Richard Sennett’s illuminating concept of ‘domain shifts’ is introduced in respect to new artists emerging with a particular weaving focus. While the three profiled artists work with different mediums and from different conceptual frameworks, each artist poignantly reinterprets the weave structure while respecting its historical lineage. I conclude with my own reflections on the transformative power of weaving and what it means to me as a weaver and an emerging designer. I believe in the transformative power of weaving, through co-creation, innovation and an observance of those who have gone before to challenge, subvert and create true works of beauty.