October
Beyond the warp and the weft: Ikat textiles of the island of Savu, eastern Indonesia
Presented by Geneviève Duggan PhD
Saturday, October 16, 2021, 10am PT Online Presentation via Zoom Admission: Free to TAC Members, $5 Students and members of FAMSF, $10 General Admission. Purchase Tickets Here
Zoom ink will be emailed to all TAC members
The fine Savu ikat textiles have intrigued collectors who sensed that they entail something not readily visible. Cloths made by skillful weavers during special ceremonies are considered sacred and powerful which confers a particular rank to the women who make them. Let’s discover not only the physical and aesthetical characteristics of the textiles, but also their intangible aspects. In a traditionally non-literate society one can ‘read’ textiles deciphering messages that connect people to their rich past. During three decades of contacts with islands of eastern Indonesia, Geneviève Duggan researched textile traditions in social contexts and published Ikats of Savu, women weaving history in eastern Indonesia, (White Lotus 2001); she also studied means of transmission of knowledge in an oral society for her PhD (Processes of memory on the island of Savu, NUS 2008). Her thesis received the Wang Gungwu medal and prize of NUS and the Ananda Rajah Prize of NUS Sociology Department. This helped her to finance a bilingual publication on textiles for the schools of the island of Savu (2010). From 2010 until 2013 she was a visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore.
Image Credits: All images courtesy of Geneviève Duggan.
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