Striking Patterns: Contemporary Ikat Design and Its Future

Abstract

This review presents the results of a conference on ikat textiles organized in the context of the exhibition Striking Patterns: Global Traces in Local Ikat Fashion at the Museum der Kulturen Basel, Switzerland (October 2016 to March 2017). Academics and professional experts, some of them working for NGOs, debated often neglected potentialities as well as the future of contemporary ikat design and other intricately patterned handwoven textiles: the significance of new patterns; intellectual property rights; and educational encouragement. The general focus lay on the controversially perceived innovation of textile patterns in Indonesia and Timor-Leste. We will here present the main arguments of the discussion and our own suggestions for further research.

Keywords:

• ikat weaving
• patterns
• fashion
• art
• cultural heritage
• modernity
• intellectual property rights
• knowledge and skills

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft Basel, who enabled the conference with a generous financial contribution. Further we thank the following participants in the conference for their most valuable presentations and discussion inputs: Joanna Barrkman, curator at the Fowler Museum, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) since 2017; Roy W. Hamilton, former curator at the Fowler Museum, UCLA; Alfonsa Horeng, leader of the weaving cooperative Lepo Lorun, Flores; Rosalia Soares, Timor Aid, Dili; and Meinar Sapto Wulan, anthropology student, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta. We are especially grateful to the following participants for their contributions in the discussion: Cyprianus Dale, anthropology doctoral candidate, University of Bern; Edgar Keller, anthropologist, University of Zurich; Reto Meili, Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, Bern; Christina Moor, textile designer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art; and Emilie Wellfelt, anthropologist at the Linnäus University, Sweden. Finally, we thank Tabea Buri and Anna-Sophie Hobi, Museum der Kulturen Basel, who took the minutes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Willemijn de Jong

Willemijn de Jong is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Zurich, and was a guest curator at the Museum der Kulturen Basel for the exhibition Striking Patterns: Global Traces in Local Ikat Fashion. Her publications concern textile work and ritual life relating to kinship and gender in Indonesia, where she has conducted extensive fieldwork and many cultural visits since the mid-1980s. Further publications deal with social security and aging in India, and reproductive technologies and families in Switzerland. [email protected]

Richard Kunz

Richard Kunz is a sociocultural anthropologist, curator of the Southeast Asian collection, and Deputy Director of the Museum der Kulturen Basel, Switzerland. He has contributed to several exhibitions and publications, including Naga: A Forgotten Mountain Region Rediscovered (2008), Eigensinn (2011), Expeditions: The World in a Suitcase (2012), and Striking Patterns: Global Traces in Local Ikat Fashion (2016). [email protected]