Ikat Textiles of the Indonesian Archipelago
The Pusaka Collection, a private non-profit creation, has a narrow focus on ikat textiles from Indonesia. It aims to show the region's ikat culture as a whole, using antique and vintage examples made with traditional methods. It spans the arc of the Indonesian archipelago, from Sumatra in the west till the Moluccas in the east, and reaches beyond Indonesia's borders to include the Malaysian state of Sarawak and the Democratic Republic of East Timor. To understand the values and aims that shape this collection, read the page on Collecting Philosophy.
Highlights are a well-preserved 'elephant patola', silk ikat and gold brocade limar from Bangka, double ikat geringsing from Bali, and early specimens from remote islands such as Palu'e, Raijua, Adonara, Alor, Solor, Leti, Lakor. Relatively overrepresented are the Moluccas, partly the result of the 2016 acquisition of the Moluccas chapter of the J.B. Lüth collection. Another relative strength is Borneo, largely resulting from the 1982 acquisition of the Wilhelm Bern collection. Other rare examples came from the renowned August Flick collection. The Timor section is notable for its relative numerical strength and the average age of the examples. It laid the basis for the 2019/2020 exhibition 'Timor: Totems and Tokens' at Museu do Oriente in Lisbon.
Documentation - including social context
"Art, any art, requires a comprehensive framework to understand its subtleties, but to understand textiles - potentially the most subtle of personal arts - requires a comprehension of the social life from which these textiles acquire meaning."James J. Fox (Emery Roundtable, 1979)
Curator Peter ten Hoopen's credo is 'collect the culture, not the piece'. In his view, when faced with collapsing traditions, the most crucial part of conservation is not the preservation of emblematic examples, however imperative, but rather the preservation of knowledge, which is so much more perishable than objects. We attempt to describe all regions of ikat production, even those that in quantitative terms are meagrely represented. It may seem excessive to write a whole chapter on a region represented in the collection by a just a few cloths - or even a single example - but these textiles are so rare that many major museums with Asian textile collections have not a single one; hence describing them to the best of our ability seems a worthwhile contribution to the collective knowledge base.
Our interest is not limited to the textiles per se: we are equally fascinated by the cultures that produced them. Who are these people who spent months, when not years, working on a single piece of cloth? What are their beliefs, their customs, their drives? In the many short chapters (and in a growing number of books, see columns on the right) we have tried to distill the essence of what we learned from the various scholars whose works we had access to, from dealers and fellow collectors, and from local people during our travel on the islands.
Efforts have been made to provide accurate descriptions, based on a combination of information provided by the sellers (be they original owners or dealers), desk research, and visits to museum reserves, consultation of experts - both in academia and in the collecting community - to specifically vet important pieces, microscopic inspection, and contributions by website visitors kind enough to share specific knowledge of certain textiles.
Collection aims for quality and geographic reach
Pusaka Collection is not a business, but a private collection, built up over decades by purchases on the islands and from dealers and auction houses around the world. Though we feel that we have the Indonesian archipelago and its ikat tradition fairly well covered, there are still a few lacunae and we are open to the acquisition of new pieces that can enrich the collection in terms of either geographical spread, age, or artistic excellence. Before contacting us please be aware that something bought in a tourist shop is unlikely to be treasure. Essentially, what we are interested in is museum quality.Reflections on an unraveling culture
While we were not aware of this at the time we started collecting traditional Indonesian ikat textiles, it became clear to us over time that the act of collecting, particularly of pieces of high quality and rarity, is in fact robbing the island communities of their heirlooms, pieces that are vital for their social cohesion and spiritual well-being.Economic pressures as well have contributed massively to the cultural destruction - islanders simply cannot afford anymore to spend many months of even years producing a heirloom cloth - as but Ruth Barnes, doyenne of ikat scholarship, notes in her seminal article Without Cloth We Cannot Marry:
"The situation at present puts scholars working with contemporary 'traditional' Indonesian art in an impossible position. We feel committed to people whose craftsmanship and mastery of their environment we appreciate. They have given us much, and perhaps we feel that we can only repay them by passing on what we have learned from them. There, however, we are caught; with our publications [such as indeed this website], we inadvertently threaten the cultural heritage of those to whom we owe so much."
While we agree that, paradoxically, any and all attention given to these products of tradition accelerates the unraveling of the culture that produced them, we must also acknowledge that there is a parallel truth. Collectors and curators are far and away the most effective agents in the preservation of the Indonesian islands' heritage of material culture and, perhaps even more importantly, in its documentation.
While some of the older museum collections have regrettably rudimentary, and occasionally erroneous information on provenance and social import of their textiles because their core was formed by gifts from missionaries to whom the pieces primarily represented objectionable manifestations of 'heathen' ways of life, and at best visually appealing curiosities, from around 1975 onwards the study of Indonesian ikat was taken up with great energy, respect for its social function, and a new sense of urgency due to the realization that both the technique itself and local knowledge about the meaning of motifs were fading fast.
In our view it behoves us as collectors to take care of these heirlooms as if they were our own - in full consciousness that we are merely their temporary guardians - and use them to help create understanding for a culture that had many admirable aspects that, once understood to the full, may inform and inspire our contemporary life.
RESEARCH TOOLS
Comparison of specific weight across regions and within a specific region can reveal interesting patterns. For instance, that contrary to what one might expect, in East Sumba the older hand-spun ikats are made of finer fibre than those with later machine made yarn, sometimes even 15% finer.
Two images may be studied side side with the Compare A-B facility. Microscopic images may be juxtaposed by the Compare A-B Micro tool.
The Literature section covers a large selection of available literature, both textile-specific and of an anthropological/ethnological nature. Short write-ups on the pages about the various island groups and individual islands contain a map and a summary of the most important literature. To help you pronounce local terms correctly we have compiled a compact Pronunciation Guide.
Dating Indonesian textiles is a sensitive, often challenging exercise. Those interested are referred to our Notes on Dating.
Magnifier
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Clicking this icon in page headings opens a page [example] that allows you to view the cloth in high resolution with a digital magnifier by moving your mouse curser over the areas you wish to inspect. | |
Microscopic images
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Clicking this icon in page headings opens a page [example] with one or more images in 800-1000x magnification which allows inspection of the threads and individual fibres. | |
Detail images
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Clicking this icon in page headings opens a page [example] with one or more detail images. |
An invitation to contribute
This website, which is expanded and deepened over time in a continuous process of knowledge acquisition and sharing, aims to serve the textile loving community as a clearing house for information on Indonesian ikat. We specifically invite you to visit the Collections and Literature pages - and to suggest additions. Every page describing individual cloths has a little button such as the one top left, which invites you to share what you know. Please do not hesitate to use it, even if the information you can provide seems minor. Any information that can improve the functioning of this clearing house is much appreciated.
We thank the growing number of people who have enriched the Pusaka Collection by sharing their knowledge, and hope that our work contributes to the international recognition of the unique beauty of traditional Indonesian ikat textiles.
©Peter ten Hoopen, 2024. All rights reserved. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents of this website in any form is prohibited other than the following: you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only. You may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge this website as the source of the material. You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system. Please use the contact page for usage requests.
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NOBLE VIRTUOSITY Hidden Asymmetry in Ikat from Sumba Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery |
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 In this new study, Peter ten Hoopen reveals levels of virtuosity in the work of Sumbanese textile artists that remained overlooked for over a century of Indonesian textile research. Their richly decorated men's wraps, hinggi, have commonly been described as symmetric along both axes. But as ten Hoopen discovered, Sumba's noble weavers managed to create asymmetry by hiding tiny visual elements that disrupted symmetry and were made to be overlooked. Ironically, they were so good at hiding these design elements that they remained unnoticed for generations. Ten Hoopen's findings reveal not just the Sumbanese dyers' virtuosity, but also the playfulness that inspired their work. This ode to the Sumbanese weavers' ingenuity aims to create a new global class of initiates and to inspire even greater admiration for their art. Also distributed by Chicago University Press.
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IKAT FROM TIMOR AND ITS OUTER ISLANDS Dissertation Leiden University |
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The first study to focus on ikat of eastern Indonesia (20 islands) from a technical perspective, including microscopy and design analysis of asymmetry - a subject that has largely been ignored. Seven techniques to achieve asymmetry are differentiated, including visual tricks and illusions. On Sumba, noblewomen created tiny visual devices, hidden keys, that created asymmetry without seeming to. Ironically, because were so good at hiding their virtuosity, it remained overlooked by generations of researchers. Review in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land en Volkenkunde. Awarded an Accolade at the ICAS Book Prize: "A work of considerable scholarship", "beautifully produced and superbly well-illustrated".
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IKAT TEXTILES OF THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery |
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Ikat Textiles of the Indonesian Archipelago, catalogue of the 'Fibres of Life' exhibition at Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong, was authored by Peter ten Hoopen with input from a dozen region-specific experts. It is the first reference work to cover all of the archipelago. 602 pages, 448 ills., 23.5 x 31 cm (9.25 x 12.25"), ISBN 978-988-19024-7-4. Academic review in 'Bijdragen'. Distributed by HKU Press, Periplus and Amazon. More info...
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FIBRES OF LIFE Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery, 2017 |
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Hong Kong University Museum and Art Gallery in 2017/18 held an exhibition of 102 dyeing masterworks from the Pusaka Collection, titled 'Fibres of Life'. Featured in HALI issue 192, HALI issue 193, Asia Week, University of Hong Kong website, HKU Museum Society, Interview Bincang Noesa, Interview Textile Atlas. |
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TIMOR: TOTEMS AND TOKENS Museu do Oriente, Lisbon 2019-2020 |
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In 2019-2020 Museu do Oriente in Lisbon exhibited ikat textiles from West and East Timor under the title 'Timor: Totems and Tokens': 70 examples of the island's extraordinarily rich ikat culture. The catalogue Timor: Totems and Tokens (bilingual EN/P) was edited by Peter ten Hoopen with contributions by Jill Forshee, Pierre Dugard, Linda S. McIntosh and Georges Breguet. More...
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WOVEN LANGUAGES Museu do Oriente, Lisbon, 2014-2015 |
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 Museu do Oriente exhibited 80 ikat textiles from the Pusaka Collection, the world's first archipelago-wide exhibition. Catalogue: Woven Languages, 144 pages, bilingual (EN/P), field photography, 80 plates [SOLD OUT]. PRESS COVERAGE |
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