[Kabar-indonesia] Thirty years promoting traditional Indonesian textiles

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Jakarta Post 
Sunday, August 6, 2006

Feature

A long, winding road to promoting native textiles

Rahmayanti, Contributor, Jakarta

Thirty years is a fairly long time for an organization like the Indonesian 
Traditional Textiles Society to promote the country's textiles, but as its 
leaders have realized much has yet to be done to make the textiles popular among 
Indonesians.

"We have done all we can to preserve traditional fabric throughout the 
country but a lot more has yet to be achieved," said Indonesian Traditional Textiles 
Society (Wastraprema) chairman Adiati Arifin Siregar recently.

As part of its effort to introduce traditional textiles to the public at 
large in Jakarta, Wastraprema organized an exhibition of Palembang traditional 
cloth at the Textiles Museum in mid July. The event was held to coincide with the 
organization's 30th anniversary.

South Sumatra is known for Palembang's songket (fabric embroidered with gold 
or silver thread), tajung (woven silk cloth), plangi (silk cloth of various 
colors), jumputan (scarves with floral patterns), and batik (or Jepri batik, 
named after Al Jufri, who formerly ordered batik from Pekalongan for sale in 
South Sumatra).

Songket cloth appealed to visitors to the exhibit as Wastraprema members 
showed off the cloth as part of efforts to provide information about traditional 
woven cloth in the region. They came in different varieties including lepus 
(fully ornamented with gold thread), lepus berakam (with additional colored silk 
thread) and limar (combined with a central area and special thread for 
headcloths or belts).

The most beautiful on display was a type of songket with emas jantung 
(Chinese gold thread) ornamentation, which has not been produced since the outbreak 
of World War II due to the absence of thread from China. If any new product is 
found today, it must be a remake with thes thread derived from old cloth of 
this type.

The diversity of songket indeed reflects the glorious history of the 
Sriwijaya Kingdom in Southeast Asia. Based in Palembang, Sriwijaya's territorial 
borders reached as far as Thailand, with its maritime trade and shipping fleet 
exploring China and India. All that expansion enriched the kingdom with a culture 
of elegantly designed cloth and clothing.

Through this exhibition, Wastraprema aimed to reintroduce Indonesia's 
traditional textiles as the nation's cultural heritage. Sadly, people are unaware of 
the high artistic value of such fabrics. Meanwhile, neighboring and even 
remote countries have imitated our products. Wastraprema is considering 
intellectual property rights or patents for textile creations that are typically 
Indonesian.

To help preserve and raise the appreciation for traditional cloth, 
Wastraprema organizes several regular programs including the public display of 
traditional textiles, lectures or discussions on the country's traditional textiles and 
cultural tours. On all of these occasions, information about traditional 
fabrics is disseminated to members, participants and the public at large.

Cultural tours to traditional textile centers acquaint visitors with the 
woven cloth typical of that region and how it is made. This year Wastraprema 
observed weaving activities in Tenganan, Bali, known for its Gringsing cloth and in 
Palembang for its songket. In previous years it toured Sintang's weaving 
center in West Kalimantan, Java's batik making areas, South Sulawesi's embroidery 
districts, besides promoting Indonesian textiles in Spain.

Genuine traditional fabrics are being kept safe through storage, maintenance 
and reproduction. "Authentic cloth should be safely stored for documentation 
to be shown to younger generations as proof of our invaluable traditional 
textiles," said Elsie Sunarya from Wastraprema's program, exhibition and lecture 
section.

The making of regional fabrics has to be supported to ensure they do not 
disappear. The existence of a market that understands and uses traditional cloth 
for daily use is therefore very important and will support regional economies.

While they are made in the relevant regions, handwoven reproductions of 
traditional textiles are turned out in Troso-Jepara, Central Java, which duplicates 
genuine fabrics of East Nusa Tenggara, Lombok, and Bentenan of Minahasa that 
no longer exist (with only five authentic copies in the world, one of which is 
kept at the National Museum, Jakarta).

"Duplication of traditional textiles can and should be made but the genuine 
ones must never be lost," Adiati pointed out.

Wastraprema has been gathering old fabrics of high value whose owners are 
incapable of properly maintaining them to turn over to the Jakarta Textiles 
Museum, which has the appropriate means and equipment for storage.

"We want to set up a library as Indonesia's traditional textile information 
center, possess our own building, grant awards regularly to those reviving 
traditional fabric making, and undertake research to form an Indonesian textile 
data base," revealed Adiati.

"We are gathering various traditional cloth to start research," added Elsie. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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