TheJakartaPost
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Batik Day: Retracing the past, embracing the future
Batik artisans and aficionados talk about the new challenges ahead of batik and retrace the perplexing history of Batik Belanda (Dutch Batik).
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Timeless: Visitors admire a Cirebon-style batik cloth displayed at the Textile Museum in Central Jakarta. (JP/Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak)
T
en years after Indonesian batik was recognized globally as a cultural heritage, collaborative efforts from the government and various communities to raise public awareness and to promote the immaterial value of batik have shown satisfying results.
The most common ones are that batik has turned into a popular choice for workwear and a never-ending source of inspiration and material for fashion designers.
An organization of batik assessors has also been established to safeguard the original batik-making technique that was inscribed on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on Oct. 2, 2009. The date has been celebrated as National Batik Day since then.
But with all these achievements come new challenges.
In a public discussion held by the Textile Museum in Central Jakarta, three speakers raised several concerns that they said needed to be tackled to make batik even more relevant in this changing era.
The discussion held on Saturday was a part of the museum’s National Batik Day celebration on Wednesday.
Netherlands-based artist and batik blogger Sabine Bolk was conducting research on European influences in Javanese batik when she found some inconsistencies in different works of literature about Carolina Josephina von Franquemont (1816-1867), a German of Indonesian descent who is dubbed the Mother of Batik Belanda (Dutch Batik).
