Carefully Woven Heritage
The Age
Monday June 30, 2003
CRAFT Review: OUR PATTERN OF ISLANDS, TEXTILES FROM THE PHILIPPINES, Gold Treasury Museum, until August 3
This show was curated by Norma Respicio of the University of the Philippines. If your picture of that country is a bit hazy, an overview of its traditional textiles is a useful way to engage with it.
There's a curious fit between these textiles and the wood-panelling and patterned carpet of the museum's high-ceilinged, 19th-century interior. Perhaps it's the muted colours of the Philippines' natural dyes; perhaps it's the geometric patterns; or maybe it's the elegance of the extremely long hangings, but they look at home here.
The irony is that the idea of ``home" is precisely what is threatened when economic forces come into conflict with craft traditions, as has happened in the Philippines.
The overall impression is of work of such fine detail that it is hard to believe it is done using pedal-frame looms or, simply, back straps. Some of the most extraordinary are the pieces made from pina (pineapple leaf fibre) or abaca (from a native plant), in the main gallery - for example, the off-white, almost colourless, pina cloth used for formal occasions made by Susuma del la Cuz and Lunita Victoriano, with a supplementary weft (raised) design of a rose, which comes from Panay in the western Visayas group of islands.
Next to this work is an exquisite fabric woven from abaca yarn made by India Legaspi, from the same region, which includes embroidery in a drawn-thread technique.
There is too much information to take in on one visit, but, on my first, the Iloko weavers in the north-west of the island of Luzon became my favourite. One of the most compelling motifs, found in their work is the whirlwind.
Along with the whirlpool, this intricate, concentric pattern of rectangles of decreasing size works fabulously on an op-art level. But, unlike the empty signifiers of the modern world, the role of the kusikus, as the design is called, is to shield the owner from the fury of the wind god. See the three-panel work hanging in the hallway, made in Piddig by Baket Nicolasa in 1963, for a fine example of this.
The other main island is Mindanao, in the south. The Yakan are unrivalled in tapestry weaving. From western Mindanao, the wraparound cloth to go over pants is woven from commercially dyed silk. Thin strips separate bands of triangular shapes, use of gold, red, yellow, green, violet, black and white indicating the social status of the wearer, with yellow and violet being reserved for traditional rulers.
Respicio believes that the Philippines' very varied textile tradition ``lives on in defiance of the onslaught of globalisation". Amen to that.
© 2003 The Age