Winter has truly arrived, and the Chitral valley is surrounded with the snow-covered peaks of the Hindukush. In this cold weather, the women gather around the fire, chit-chatting and embroidering. Somehow, Israr and his team from MOGH Ltd (our local partners) miraculously manage to get us the textiles across the Lowari Pass (3200m altitude). Sometimes by air, sometimes through the new tunnel, sometimes across the icy mountains. So if you have had to wait for a bag you are coveting, there are very good reasons!

Pot Swap

Zaibonda sold ‘Pot-Swap’ on the opening night of the ‘Gup Shup’ exhibition at the National Art Gallery (NAG), in Islamabad on International Women’s Day 2009. Using part of the money from the sale, her son Sajjid started his commerce degree at the Commerce College in Chitral. He had initially wanted to go to Peshawar, but the tense security situation in the city kept him up-country, close to his family.

The ‘Pot-Swap’ bags remain popular. As one key supporter, who carries ‘Pot Swap’ on a daily basis, emotionally exclaimed “I feel such a connection to the woman who created this bag!”.

And other news – Naseema (one of the artisans responsible for the creation and embroidery of the lovely ‘Mantlepiece’, ‘Mehndi’, ‘Calender’ and ‘Harvest’ textiles) had her own mehndi in October. She is happily working as the warden of a nurses’ hostel in Chitral town, living with her husband, and occasionally travelling the 6 hours even further north to her husband’s village.

Though the crops were harvested in October ‘Gup Shup’ continues to bear fruit. Some news from across the globe:

Gup Shup Exhibitions

Following the success of the textile exhibitions in Islamabad (8^th March 2009), and Karachi (28^th May 2009), we are hoping to be in Lahore next … the cultural capital of Pakistan. We’ll keep you posted on the exact venue and dates when we are passing through early next year.

Drawing for 'Mantlepiece'

The textile ‘Mantelpiece’ recently sold, to an Islamabad resident. And ‘Ice-cream’ has found a happy home and should be landing in Dubai soon. If you are interested in a textile, please do get in touch, as there are only a handful left …

‘Gup Shup’ went international, to Polly&me’s home shores of Australia at Craft Victoria in Melbourne, June 2009. Two textiles (‘Sultan the Sitar Player’, and ‘Games with Didi’) did us proud down under.

With such a multitude of loyal supporters in Dubai, we are eager to bring the ‘Gup Shup’ textiles with all the narratives and the endless cup of chai to Dubai, March 2010 – watch this space!

Do you want to know more? Email Ange at info@pollyandme.com

Proudly Produced in Pakistan!

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She describes how she was drawn to silk production in her home country:

In 2002, my husband was offered the position of United Nations Advisor on Human Trafficking for South East Asia based in Vientiane Laos. Soon after I got a job with UNICEF and all Lao women must wear the traditional sarong. So I went to the markets to look for material but everything was in fluoro colours so I decided to have my neighbours who were weavers produce silk especially for me. I would sit and watch and developed an interest ever since.

Samorn sees a tradition that is passed down relatively unconsciously through family lines.

All Lao silk is woven on traditional looms, there is no industrialisation as yet.

Lao silk is  intricate, sophisticated and of high quality. With Lao silk there is a continuity in the way that it is still passed on from mother to daughter as opposed to having a romantic notion that `this is our culture’ or part of our tradition. Most weavers are poor and mostly illiterate but there is great technical skill required for weaving. There is also a fragility about Lao silk. Unlike most  handicraft  products from around the world which sadly ends up in Fair Trade stores or gift shops,  much Lao silk end up in Museums and galleries.

But there are serious problems. Samorn sees silk weaving in Laos caught between the intrusion of modernity from outside and conservatism within:

[The challenges include] globalisation, urbanisation, competition with mass production from China, in terms of raw silk as well as retail. There is the local market production for the tourist industry versus international market: selling products abroad and few have the skill to do so.

Knowledge and skills about various crafts such as weaving and natural dyeing which have existed for centuries are no longer being passed through generations because the young people today aren’t interest or have no desire to use silk or learn the methods, they want a mobile phone and to wear denim jeans.

It is caught in conservative politics. Lao women have the sole responsibility of being ‘guardians’ of culture. As an example of this, during the  ASEAN summit, women who were not in traditional sarongs during the meeting were fined and men were not.

In describing the motivation for starting Eastern Weft, Samorn wanted to show her adopted world the quality of Laos silk:

It was more of coincidence than desire to start a business. I wanted to ‘conserve our national heritage in the face of bewildering change.’ I wanted to keep my connection with my birthplace by giving some highly skilled young people a chance to improve their lives through producing beautiful silk. To show the world what we were capable of  producing by combining traditional weaving techniques with contemporary design. Eastern WEFT does not purely exist as a Fair Trade business, we focus on the technical skills and the beautiful art of Lao weavings.

But it’s not always easy to work with traditional peoples:

Working with Lao people in general is difficult,  they are unpredictable they work in their own time. They will not work during holidays even for extra pay!

And she hopes for the future:

Funding to expand our workshop. Educating people about the skills and dedication and labour required for weaving.

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Crin is one of Chile’s most distinctive folk crafts. In markets around the country you will find delicate forms, often taking the shape of insects, woven out of dyed horsehair. Despite its distribution around the country, almost all Crin originates from a small town called Rari.

Crin appeared mysteriously around 200 years ago, as local women found they could weave poplar roots into figures. After discovering the flexibility of horse hair they combined a Mexican plant fibre Ixtle which provided structural strength. It’s not clear why this technique emerged there in particular, but the town’s proximity to a spa resort meant that there was a ready market for cositas (little things).

Crin is made entirely by hand. No equipment is involved, even knitting needles. But unlike the chunky results of finger-knitting, crin is exquisitely fine.

As a folk craft, crin was rarely taken seriously. However, it is now finding a niche as a versatile, colourful and particularly Chilean component in the burgeoning new jewellery scene in Chile. But its recent success comes with complications.

Women crin weavers from Rari

A Santiago architect Paula Leal has been exploring ways of collaborating with artisans from Rari. An earlier attempt with weaver Alba Sepúlveda led to the award for the 2008 UNESCO Seal of Excellence for Handicraft Products. The product incorporated modernist forms of crin into a hair clasp.

But the business of incorporating crin into jewellery is actually quite a political issue. In some ways, it parallels the movement of New Zealand jewellers who sought to include local materials and techniques such as jade carving into their work. In some cases, this meant reviving some of the lost Indigenous skills, while at the same time not simply imitating traditional Maori culture.

In the case of Chile, it is still the case that you can’t incorporate crin into your work without the willing cooperation of an artisan. It seems the nature of Chilean society that local skills are not easily generalisable. It would be extremely rare for someone in Santiago to teach themselves how to weave with crin. This division of labour creates an asymmetry, particular in the relative prices of crin sold in markets and jewellery featuring crin in fashionable jewellery boutiques.

Even for someone who has achieved success such as Paula, this can be difficult. She had to find some new crin weavers when her previous collaborator broke the partnership. Apparently, she felt resentment that she was sharing the stage with a designer who didn’t actually make anything herself.

Manuela Tromben and Paula Leal

Recently, Paula Leal formed a partnership with fellow architect Manuela Tromben in the development of an exhibition devoted to crin. Orígenes Y Atuendos Imaginarios (Origins and Imaginary Outfits) included jewellery and wall work that manipulated elements of traditional crin to create new works. For instance, the cylindrical form that normally is coiled to form the body of a snail was uncoiled and introduced into a necklace form. Local jewellers Walka Studio added the silver attachments.

Orígenes Y Atuendos Imaginarios installation

Crin has a long way to go. There’s potential for much experimentation. It seems inevitable that someone in Santiago will eventually learn to make it themselves. But I hope that doesn’t exclude the possibility that some of the women from Rari might themselves engage actively with product development.

But here, on the other side of the Pacific, a recent exhibition in Melbourne shows an alternative path. Vicky Shukuroglou recently completed her Masters in Gold and Silversmithing. Vicky had previously taken a South Project residency in Brazil and was interested in weaving with alternative materials. While at RMIT she had furthered her manipulation of horse hair to create extremely delicate woven structures.

steel wire, horse hair

steel wire, horse hair

Vicky’s objects are designed deliberately to appear insubstantial. They certainly are not made to function as jewellery, lacking solid form and metal clasps. But as such, they might seem to be true to the wispy material itself, allowing it to unravel freely. Some are likely to worry that she is taking the object out of the normal circuits of exchange that connect it with people’s lives – it can only live on a plinth. Is this a possible path in Chile?

In all, what’s happening with crin tells a story similar to other crafts across the South. Part of the post-colonial process involves coming to terms with the immediate world around us. This means not always looking North for what’s precious, but learning in how to find the beauty in what is at hand.

That process has barely begun.

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Standing around the coals discussing craft product

Alejandra Bobidilla (right) showing new designs at a cross-roads

Like most other colonies, the nation of Chile was established through a forced dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their land. One group proved particularly hard to displace. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Mapuche had successful resisted an invasion from the Incas. After this, they held off the Spanish for nearly 300 years, as colonists appropriated land to their north and south. The middle territory of Mapuche ranged from Concepción in the north to Chiloé in the south.

Today, Mapuche make up 4% of the population in Chile. Their centre is Temuco, a city of a quarter of a million people, now a tourist hub. In the region of Temuco are many Mapuche communities, which are mostly poor and subsist on crafts and agricultural production. The crafts of weaving and jewellery are particularly strong among Mapuche. In Chile, they are known as well for their herbal medicines and elaborate cosmography, based on the cardinal points.

The World Vision office in Temuco is focused on enabling Mapuche communities to have greater independence and capacity. In July this year, I travelled with Alejandra Bobadilla to communities west of Temuco, towards Puetro Saavedra. These were people known as lafkenche, people of the sea.

Maria Mallafil, Mapuche leader and weaver

Alejandra’s main mission was to encourage handmade textile production among the Mapuche women. We were accompanied by a Mapuche elder, Maria Mallafil, whose familiarity with the communities and understanding of their craft was essential. We mostly met in community halls. These were small rooms with walls covered by notices and posters of common concern. We were offered tortillas and cakes with tea, sometimes matte. For more remote artisans, we would visit their homes.

Both women gave feedback on their weaving and suggested new opportunities. In particular, Alejandra had samples from a Colombian designer for vests which were likely to be popular in the urban markets. She showed these designs and discussed how they might be produced. Along the way, she also dealt with issues ranging from health to agriculture. It seemed she was a very important conduit for information between the communities.

Helena Mallefil, Mapuche basket-maker

I was particularly struck by the visit to Helena Mallefil, a basket-maker. She had a particularly humble one-room house, with no glass in the windows, but with a very cosy tray of coals to keep us warm. She make a wonderful orange cake and tea. Looking around at her baskets, I realised that I had purchased one of them last year at ONA as a gift for my mother. As often, I thought of the distance between her seeming threadbare life and the comfortable clientele of ONA in Santiago.

Her baskets are strong, well-made and beautifully coloured with natural dyes. But I noticed one round basket in particular which was adorned with a head, wings and feet. It seemed like a penguin, but it was probably a hen (for putting eggs in). I could see great potential here, following what has happened with Aboriginal basket-makers in Australia’s Western desert, who now produce lively grass sculptures.

Cristina Sagreda designer and her son Daniel in the shop where they sell Mapuche handmade clothing

Back in Santiago, Alejandra took me to visit the shop in downtown Providencia (rich suburb of Santiago) where much of the Mapuche textiles are sold. It was a very nice shop, with a wide range of craft products, particularly jewellery. But I thought it was a shame that there wasn’t an outlet that might tell a Mapuche story more completely. I could see it would also make a difference if the designers were able to spend time directly with Mapuche in developing and producing new works.

World Vision do have a broad view of possibilities for Mapuche. They are currently working on a cultural exchange between Mapuche and Australian Indigenous. The facilities offered for Indigenous culture here, such as the Koorie Heritage Trust, may well be the subject of envy on the other side of the Pacific. But the resilience and pride of the Mapuche could be inspiring here too.

The Mapuche have a particularly rich musical, poetic and craft culture. Colonisation has seen them pushed to the margins of Chilean society. It seems a worthwhile challenge to find ways of bridging that divide.

Links:

• World Vision’s program of textile support – Comercio Solidario
• Fair Trade with Mapuche – Funcación Chol Chol
• Craft shop in Santiago – ONA
• More images of the trip – Picasa

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Cathy Kata lives in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, in Goroke. Like a number of other PNG makers, she has adapted traditional bilum weaving techniques to clothes and fashion. Her seamless skirts and tops are made with the same hand-looped, woven in the round techniques as bags.

Cathy decided to leave her career as the secretary of an academic department at the University of Goroka and focus on becoming a bilum designer, venturing into bilum fashion wear. Her husband, Joseph Kata, admires her creativity and said that the opportunity for Cathy to take up a Jolika Fellowship in San Francisco gave her valuable exposure to other artists and designers. She is now preparing for a fashion show in the UK, working with other women in her home village in the Eastern Highlands fashioning the garments.

High fashion garments are now proudly worn by beauty contestants in Miss PNG, Miss Melanesia and Miss Hiri Hanemano competitions, beauty contestants and in fashion parades like the annual Red Cross Miss PNG Ball, which attracting big media coverage.

Cathy’s work is remarkable in many ways. First, they have been able to translate powerful designs into beautifully shaped garments. Second, she is able to complete the transformation from craft to fashion herself. Cathy is part of an emerging generation of makers able to translate their own traditional culture into modern forms.

Cathy Kata is referred to in an article about bilum-wear for the After the Missionaries issue of Artlink. With luck, her work will also be part of the World of Small Things (still waiting for it to get through customs).

See also:

• www.pasifiknau.com
• www.alibaba.com/member/tosamo.html Lava Lava Innovations

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Remarkably, Hlengiwe manages to sustain both her own work as a skilled crafter with a vocation for promoting Zulu crafts as a whole. She has a firm belief in self-reliance through craftwork and the richness of Zulu tradition. These combine in her recent products for beaded cell phone pouches and handbags ornamented with tin top buttons.

Craft is the third largest employer in the South African economy. For most poor people, is the only means by which they can advance themselves. With Hlengiwe’s recent work we see the great potential for product development in South African craft.

This is her statement about the work that she has made for The World of Small Things.

RECYCLED BAGS AND EARRINGS

I am very aware of the “Keep environment Clean “campaign and as a South African citizen, I am very perturbed at the amount of litter that is strewn about on the streets, the verges and the beaches. I had noticed that a lot of this litter comprised of cool drink cans.

The government seems to have “won the war” on the plastic bag saga, but tin cans still contributes to a huge percentage of litter strewn about. I feel this matter needs serious attention.

I then came up with the idea of making bags using tin top buttons and earrings using bottle tops. I source my supply from the local dump, roadside bins and even have neighbours and street children collect them for me. I wash and sterilize them, and then they are ready to be weaved together and transformed into bags.

I weave the buttons using cotton and beads. I give the entire tin to the other artist who makes caps and belts.

I enjoy weaving with recycle material and I also do lot of weaving with recycled telephone wire strings. I believe that weaving is the way of communicating with other people, in our culture women used to visit each other and bring their mats to weave and share ideas of how to take care of their families. For me weaving is to share my feeling through it, communicate with people through my weaving. I like to incorporate it with beads, because when I first fell in love with beads I was only 12 years old, since then I have been working with beads non stop and creating new ideas.

I always enjoy sharing my experience with other people to create jobs so that they can earn a living, because I believe that as long as you have two functional hands you will never starve.

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Cheryl Adam is a recycle artist from Melbourne associated with the Philippine organisation Peace Women Partners (PWP). In her previous work, Cheryl collaborated with the Moro women from the Philippines’ Muslim population. For The World of Small Things, she is working in collaboration with a group of extremely poor homeless population from Manila, known as the ‘bat people’.

Plastic bags are a disheartening feature of impoverished landscapes. During a visit to Kenya in 2000, Cheryl was struck by the ubiquity of plastic bags, left hanging from trees after a recent drought. At the same time, he noted how these bags had replaced the grass baskets that used to be woven by local women. From this experience she determined to find a way that this problem could be addressed through a revival of craft skills.

Her involvement in the Philippines began with the visit to Australia by Merci L. Angeles for a feminist conference, which introduced the issue of ‘comfort women’ known as Malaya Lolas (meaning grandmothers in Filipino). Merci formed Peace Women Partners in 2005 and invited Cheryl to conduct workshops knitting shopping bags into boutique accessories. Working with the comfort women alerted Cheryl to the perils of rich-poor collaboration. These women were beginning to feel exploited by all the well-meaning art works organised by foreign artists in their name. From this experience, Cheryl has learned not to presume the interests of those she is working with. In 2006, she was invited by Moro women in Mindanao State University led by Elin Guro to a Women’s Solidarity Forum co-sponsored by the PWP. She ended up conducting successful workshops with Moro women.

After Cheryl’s departure from the Philippines, Filipino craftswoman Nanay Pida Nalundasan continued producing and teaching the craft for PWP, extending the idea into crocheting plastic flower broaches. The bags and flowers that were produced by Nanay Pida and her grandmother’s students were sold internationally. They became an important component of PWP campaigns, such as the commemoration of Hiroshima.

Sadly Nana Piday died, but PWP continues developing crafts among urban poor women of Metro Manila, namely the ‘bat people’. The houses of these families were demolished in an attempt to re-locate them to regions further out. The extremely long commuting times made it impossible for these families to continue their jobs, so they chose to camp under bridges, where they supplement their low wages with scavenging. A leader of the ‘bat people’, Liza Hermosada, made the flowers to draw attention to the plight of poor women in the Philippines.

According to Merci:

What better way to show that beautiful objects can metamorphose from the ugly, disregarded and disposable, than though the creation of functional crafts from trash. In a way, the poor people in our country are treated as such. The beautiful useful crafts created out of trash by Ms Adam and the urban poor women can give people a new way of looking at things and at life.

The flowers on display in World of Small Things have been made by the bat women especially for this exhibition. The reticule was made by Cheryl in honour of Nanay Pida. Cheryl has been invited back to Manila in September 2009 where she will take workshops with the bat women.

Plastic is a low status material associated with waste and pollution. With campaigns to reduce plastic bags in supermarkets, we generally like to see less of them. But can the persistence, labour and solidarity of Manila’s bat people give dignity to this material, so that we would be proud to adorn our lives with it?

• Photographs of Philippines by Patricia L. Angeles
• See article about upcoming PWP conference on global peace

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‘GupShup’ means chit chat in Urdu and Hindi. It was the title of an exhibition by Polly&me, a group working on an embroidery project involving women in Chitral, in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The results of their workshops were displayed in Islamabad and Karachi, where half of the works were sold. The creative processes which produced these works were aligned closely with the grain of everyday existence. These simple pleasures of daily life shine brightly against the dark clouds of global tension associated with this corner of the world.

Polly&me was developed by Cath Braid, an Australian who originally started work in northern Pakistan with Kirsten Ainsworth as part of the clothing label Caravana, which featured in Smartworks. Cath has been working in Chitral since 2003. The town is in the north-west frontier of Pakistan, near Afghanistan, and lies nested within the mountain range of the Hindu Kush. Populated by the Kho people, fond of playing polo, the region is synonymous with fundamentalist terrorism in the Western mind.
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Cath has been working with the AKRSP (Aga Khan Rural Support Program) to assist women’s development. Her work in Chitral was assisted by Rolla Khadduri, a Lebanese woman, who has been working in Pakistan for four years. For Rolla, this project is ‘an opportunity to give women the space to tell their own stories’. Rolla worked with Cath
on running the workshops, probing the women about their stories, and recording their tales to appear at the back of each textile.

Cath has been working with 30 mostly unmarried women in particular. She begins with story-telling, dealing with everyday themes such as family life. They explore the graphic world around them, particularly in packaging of products from the market. Their creative exercises include making a collage of photographs of children. These them form the basis of the embroideries.

The subject of their embroideries included everyday play, such as Eikonchekek, the egg fighting game during Eid, the mother-daughter relationship and children’s names. At the same time as they explored freely their lives, these women were quite proud of their isolation (or protection) from the outside world through purdah.

Eikonchekek reflects the play during the feast of Eid when children go into battle with eggs. The story depicts a young boy who would boil his eggs so that they could withstand assault.

Games with Didi was created by Haseena, a 23 year-old unmarried woman. It depicts the riotous play between children, including Didi sitting in the tub usually reserved for washing dishes. Haseena talks about the experience of making this work:

During the workshops I used to go home with a certain joy in my heart from my work, I had become workaholic, and was not even aware of the time as we used to be so deeply involved in our work, it was fun, the practicality like practically first doing the task before going into the designing part was just wonderful.

Haseena particularly liked the exercise of drawing without looking at the paper. She was pleased to travel to Islamabad for the exhibition – ‘my childhood adventure was known to the world’ – and will be depositing money from the sale in a savings account with her bank.

The work Sultan the Sitar-Player depicts a famous musician who performs historic songs of political opposition in Farsi. He is accompanied by a jerry-can. It was created by Naseema, Shehria and Saba. From one of his songs:

People don’t know who I am mad after,
They don’t know what is in my heart,
Those who are in love know this pain,
Oh, queen of beauty,
I want your beauty’s charity,
Like a beggar I have come
For only I deserve your beauty’s charity,
Even my heart has stopped functioning.

Pot Swap was created by Zaibunissa, a mother of three. According to Zaibunissa:

Obviously it represents my house. I was so surprised to see my kitchen in the piece. My children helped me a lot on the piece and that gave a more personal touch to the piece as all my family got very emotionally attached with. That gave me very soothing and satisfying feelings.

This work was purchased by the Executive Director, The US Educational Foundation in Pakistan. Zaibun says that she will use the money to support her son’s education, ‘because for the admission of my son in a good college I’ll be needing that money as today’s inflation era people mostly hesitate in giving loan or lending money.’

Mehndi was created by nine women, including Musarat, a 13 year old girl. At the exhibition opening, Mehndi was interviewed by Aaj TV, which greatly impressed her family back in Chitral: ‘I had never before in my life faced a TV camera and they were saying that they felt really proud that among all the other girls I was chosen for an interview.’ Mehndi now wants to take on the role of Cath and Rolla and teach others herself, but according to her friend Nasreen, ‘in Chitrali Nang Kizibiko Lo, You have to come out of age for all this you are too young to even think of such a thing.’

Each textile work has its corresponding narrative sewn onto its back. To broaden involvement with the community, button pieces have been developed that women embroider with the names of male relatives and prayers. 250 women became involved in this.

Gup Shup is a landmark collaboration. Rather than seeking to preserve craft in its pure traditional form, this project introduces creative strategies to develop new images that seem true to the lives of their makers. But what seems most striking about his project is the sheer quality of the work itself, both in its craftsmanship and deft arrangement of ordinary elements.

This project seems quite transparent about the experience of the women it is meant to support. Apart for the creative challenges that they enjoyed, there seemed also benefits in the money and recognition that their work brings. But the meaning of this project is never complete. We watch with great interest to see how the women continue this momentum, and whether young girls like Musarat eventually start initiating project themselves.

Games with Didi and Sultan the Sitar Player will be on display with the World of Small Things exhibition. There will also be bags embroidered made by the women for sale in the Craft Victoria show. Proceeds from the work go directly to the women who made them.

For more information about the project, please visit their extensive website:

• www.pollyandme.com

Thanks to Ange Braid and Grace Cochrane for their assistance.

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Litter: India is no different from many other countries in its use of plastic bags. It does however have an issue with litter. The products made by Tejsi Dhana will be used as a campaign to highlight the issue.

Motif: Maldhari – cattle herder by Tejsi Dhana

New Zealand born Carole Douglas trained as an art teacher and studied textile design at Wellington Design School. During her early career she taught art and design at intermediate, secondary and tertiary institutions, worked as crafts coordinator for rural Northland and tutored in adult education. In 1980 she established her textile studio ‘Dyeversions’ from which she produced large public and private commissions and exhibition pieces. In 1981 Carole won the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts inaugural Fibre Art award. Before moving to Australia in 1986 she served two terms as vice president of the NZ Crafts Council.

In 1994 Carole returned to University where she merged her arts background with strong environmental interests and completed a master’s degree in Social Ecology. Her work since that time has been a fusion of art, environment and social advocacy. As recipient of an environmental citizen’s award Carole attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and later focused on creative usage of the waste stream.

In 1996 she travelled to Kachchh (India) in search of traditional, natural dyeing techniques and met with renowned natural dyer (late) Mohamed Siddequebai Khatri and his sons. Descended from a lineage of artisans the present generation traces their traditions back to Persia. During this and subsequent visits Carole forged strong bonds with local artisans and in 2001 following the devastating earthquake she put her efforts into raising funds to help them overcome trauma and rebuild lives and livelihoods. The exhibition ‘Resurgence – stories of an earthquake, survival and art’ was a direct outcome of these efforts. It opened at the Manly Art Gallery and Museum in 2003 and in 2006 it was acquired by the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai.

Since 2005, Carole has organized and led eight textile focused groups to Kachchh and beyond. She recently introduced carbon off-set taxes which, in conjunction with Shrujan Trust, contribute to an education and reafforestation project in remote areas. A group of Kachchhi embroiderers is currently employed to create images for a publication that will inform locals about the importance of trees.

In 2008, Carole was invited to curate an exhibition for the UNESCO conference ‘Education for Sustainability’ held in Ahmedabad. ‘New Voices New Futures’ is a collection of works by the new generation of Kachchh artisans and focuses on social and ecological sustainability. Carole also works with traditional artisans and the Victoria & Albert Museum staff to develop products based on the Museum’s collection.

Marigold temple garlands in Bhuj, Jabbar Khatri’s main source of the flowers used to obtain vibrant yellow.	Marigold garlands are sun dried on the rooftop and stored in a dark cool place. Many blooms are required to dye one scarf but the supply is plentiful.
Scarf is immersed in dye bath. Up to 250 gms of dried flowers is used for one piece.	The scarf is dipped into an alum mordant to fix the colour.
The process is repeated until the desired depth of shade is reached.	Untied scraves dry in the Bhuj sunshine. Centre colour is the result of marigold overdyed with iron (black).
The surprise comes when the thousands of tiny knots are untied and the design is released. The threads are collected and used again as cleaning pads in the automotive industry.	Close up detail of the motif. Each of the white ‘dots’ represents a tied knot that resists the dye. Thousands of woman are employed througout Kachhch in this tradition. Bandhani, as this tradition is known, is the greatest source of income in the hand crafted textile industry in Kachhch. The district also supplies tied, undyed pieces for dyeing throughout India.

Carole’s current work includes the development of a range of sustainable textiles in collaboration with Kachchh artisans. Products to date include a marigold dyed scarf by Bandhani artisan Jabbar Khatri who collects used garlands from local Hindu temples. While Jabbar’s designs are generally based on traditional motifs, Carole prefers to integrate theme and process and in this case she herself has designed the marigold flower motif.

The ethic behind my work is to create items that consider environmental responsibility, social equity and economic viability and that also observe cultural mores. I do my best not to impose my design ideals onto artisans and prefer to find ways that satisfy local and international aesthetics.

We look carefully at resource, water and energy uses; we recognize that everyone needs to be rewarded and we work out prices that cover production and what the end market will bear. Sometimes we all have to compromise.

Another recent product was the result of discussions during the development of the UNESCO project when Carole suggested artisans look to the waste steam for potential materials. The resulting range of bags and place mats is woven from locally collected plastic waste using traditional techniques. The once-used bags are cut into strips and meticulously woven by Tejsi Dhana and his family. Each bag contains in excess of 100 discarded bags and are both beautiful and durable. Carole intends to use these products to launch an anti-litter campaign later in the year.

Collected contaminated plastic waste is carted to Mumbai for recycling. Clean waste is collected for use.	The Artisan’s Loom: Tejsi works at his primitive loom and produces pieces of great beauty and durability.
Tejsi Demonstrates the technique employed for making the waste plastic bags.	Tejsi Dhana Marwada (R) master Kharad weaver with his cousin Sumar who assists in the process. Please note the vegetable dyed wools in the background used for rug weaving.
Motif: Ploughing. Cattle herding along with dry-land farming is the backbone of the local economy and has been practiced in the Banni area of Kachchh for several centuries.	Motif: Animals We Depend on. (detail) The people of the Banni depend on Goats for wool and milk, Camels for transport and livelihood and Buffalo (water) for Milk poducts.

Sustainability remains a complex question in Carole’s view.

When we did the New Voices New Futures show one of the artisans gave an opening address in which he stated: “When I think about sustainability in the outside world it seems a very complicated issue. For me and my family it is very simple. Sustainability for us means two good meals a day and a change of clothes.” When I reflect on Chaman’s comment I know that if I lived as he and many others do then my life would be so much easier and my footprint so much smaller. It is food for thought. The artisans I know live simply, work creatively, interact richly and, as far as I can tell, are happy. I don’t believe that this is a romantic view although I have to be always mindful of this in India.

Carole Douglas writes about the artisan who wove from plastic bags:

Tejsi Dhana was born and raised in the small and remote border village of Kuran. The hamlet lies on the edge of the Great Rann of Kachchh and is the last inhabited place before the Pakistan border. Due to border sensitivities most foreigners are denied permission to visit. This is camel country and Tejsi’s ancestors wove udder bags, bridles and other camel trappings from local camel, goat and sheep wool. This particular style of weaving later evolved into coarse but durable floor mats for the local market and are traditionally camel (brown) and goat (black) in colour.

The 2001 earthquake destroyed ninety percent of Kuran village and when I first met Tejsi, 4 months later, he was ‘squatting’ on a hillside near the village of Kukma some 25 kilometres from Bhuj. He saw the earthquake as a “God given” opportunity to move his extended family closer to services and to outlets for his work. By that time (May 2001) the family group had built several ‘bhungas’ – typical Kachchhi round mud homes with conical thatched roofs – and he had set up his primitive Kharad loom under a thatched shelter.

It was from this hillside and on this loom that Tejsi wove his remarkable wall rug ‘From Kuran to Kukma’ for the exhibition Resurgence in which he graphically recreated his search for a new place to settle. Beginning with his original home under the lee of the legendary black hills of Kachchh Tejsi wove his journey from horror to peace at ‘lilu drasia’ (green view) his then current place of domicile. From this new vantage point he had a vista of green fields rather than the arid salt marsh that is the great Rann of Kachchh, his children attended the local school and he could get his goods to the market in Bhuj or nearby Bhujodi – the noted village of weavers. He however he knew his time at ‘lilu drasia’ was limited due to the government policy of resettling all earthquake refugees in their home villages.

Meanwhile back in Sydney, photographer friend Jenny Templin, noted for her Indian images, raised money through an exhibition at Bondi Pavilion. She later handed me $2000 to help a family in need and with an extra $500 donated by my husband it was enough to allow Tejsi to buy a large plot of land near Kukma where he could build homes and a weaving studio.

Six years later Tejsi’s studio is well established, he employs two other family members and his work has evolved significantly. While he still uses the original loom, he has become an expert in natural dyes and creates rugs of great beauty using the subtle hues that pomegranate, indigo, lac, sappan, iron and other substances yield on local sheep wool. He has extended his design vocabulary and constantly researches traditional images. His son Samat, now 21, is now also a master weaver and chooses to make rugs that explore environmental themes. His piece ‘Trees are Life’ shows the story of changes to the land through the loss of trees and to the future. The plastic bag bags and place mats, an outcome from earlier discussions about waste materials, are created by Tejsi and his cousin on a simple Kharad loom and use local packing string for the warp and handles.

Today the future of the family’s products is precarious. Economic factors play a large part in the survival of marginal crafts such as Kharad weaving. There are now only two families in the entire district who are engaged in the tradition; the goods are difficult to sell for many reasons including limited production capacity, design factors, lack of appreciation, the high cost of transport and competition from much cheaper goods. Desert Traditions is currently working on a narrative range for an exhibition (hopefully at Bondi Pavilion). This will complete a circle, promote traditional work and, at best, find an appreciative buying audience for this ancient craft.

Thanks to Carole Douglas for images and text. You can see these works in the World of Small Things exhibition.

• www.desert-traditions.com

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Luirai Dom Alexio Corte Real of Ainaro and WWII hero (Centre) with Local Chiefs and Antonio Magno (far right). Aileu, Portuguese Timor 1938

The back-strap loom common to Timor and surrounding islands was brought down by migrants from the Bronze-age Dongson culture in mainland South-east Asia around 500BC. Today, geometric Dongson patterning and designs from Indian cloth traded by Arabs and Europeans for slaves and spices in Timor in the second century are mixed with motifs from indigenous myth and lore such as boats and crocodiles representing the original ancestors’ journeys to the islands. Local ceremonies and rituals of birth, marriage and death employ exchange of such cloth to bind together and integrate the worlds of the living and the spirits, expressing a desire for union and balance between the two worlds. Cloth is the physical embodiment of femaleness and, as sacred Lulik objects and heirlooms, they possess special powers.



Partially completed weaving on backstrap loom from Timor-Leste. Loom design by Ofelia Neves Napoleao

The motif here is a floral design from Portugal—the colonisers of Timor from the 16th Century until the Indonesian invasion of 1975. The designer Ofelia Neves Napoleao is the child of a Portuguese father and a Timorese mother who was the daughter of the Luirai or local king of Ainaro, Antonio Magno. In the feudal-style society of Ofelia’s childhood, Luirai families constituted the upper class ruling over a common farming people and below that, a caste of slaves. In the wet season she watched her royal grandmother, Antonieta Varradas Magno, prepare the cotton, and tie it off with palm leaves for dyeing and then in the dry season, dye and weave the finished cloth. Ofelia also learnt patterns from her fiancé’s royal family, the Napoleaos, of Oecussi, the old Portuguese enclave resting inside Dutch, now Indonesian West Timor. As the eldest grandchild of the last Luirai of Ainaro, Ofelia is accorded a certain respect and status in Timor.



Luirai Dom Alexio Corte Real of Ainaro and WWII hero (Centre) with Local Chiefs and Antonio Magno (far right). Aileu, Portuguese Timor 1938

These old royal elites were close to their Portuguese colonisers and, like Ofelia, spoke Portuguese. Led by Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese colonialism was rooted in the glorious beginnings of the ‘Age of Discovery’ when the Portuguese set out to explore the rest of the world reclaiming millions of lost native souls for the Catholic faith while growing rich on trade and conquests. Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Spice Islands of which Timor was part early in the 16th century and Timorese myth characterized them as younger brothers, recalled to Timor by the elders of the mountains to rule in worldly affairs.



Ofelia Neves Napoleao buying cloth at Oecussi, 2008

On the day of the bloody Indonesian invasion in 1975 Ofelia was a young woman forced to run zigzag across their courtyard with her little brothers to dodge bullet sprays. Fleeing the Indonesian occupation she followed her Oecussi fiancé to Perth, spending 20 years there trying to help her family in Timor, raising two sons and becoming a skilled craftswoman. After the destruction of the final Indonesian withdrawal in 1999, she returned and found her place helping local women rebuild their lives by running weaving and craft programs. She now works with the Alola Foundation managing the Taibesse Sewing Centre, in a hot and cavernous shed, part of an old Portuguese Army barracks, overseeing 25 staff sewing handbags from the hand-woven cloth. She visits weavers in the countryside and buys cloth according to the principles of fair-trade. In 2008 she prepared this loom for a Melbourne Exhibition to demonstrate the intricacy and skill of the weaving process.

Sara Niner has been researching the life of East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao for ten years and will publish his biography this year. She visited East Timor as a backpacker in August 1991 and the country and its struggle has become a big part of her life since then. Travelling around the island in 2000-1 searching out sites of significance in Gusmao’s life she found the land beautiful and solemn and beginning to soften after the immense raw devastation of 1999. She also saw how utterly exhausted the people were and the enormity of the task ahead for them and the agonising frustrating slowness of reconstruction. Yet after one trip far into the east of the country she wrote:

I was filled with euphoria and hope after a rich and emotional day of communication with people of vastly different experience that made it seem as if all things might be possible.

She has worked with the textiles and the weavers since that time to put on exhibitions, research and write about the craft and assist with a program of craft development and economic empowerment.

I feel that this half finished weaving embodies the new country of Timor-Leste where the task of rebuilding continues. Hope prevails but is often hard to sustain in the difficult post-war environment where violence and poverty mean hard lives for many women and men. Yet people continue to struggle everyday working to care for their families and communities and revive their culture.

For more information, download this document.

Sara Niner at work (second from left) with sewing co-op Metinaro IDP camp, 2008

Sara Niner has been researching the life of East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao for ten years and will publish his biography this year. In 2003 she produced a travelling show Weaving Women’s Stories which promoted East Timorese tais, showing the strength and beauty of this traditional weaving . She now works with the Alola Foundation and is an instructional designer with the Ministry of Finance, Timor-Leste Government (RDTL). She is also completing a research project Strong Cloth in Timor-Leste: Women’s Craft and Development at Monash University.
The loom and products can be seen on display in the World of Small Things, Craft Victoria, 18 June – 27 July 2009.

• www.alolafoundation.org

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