Determination to Preserve Legacy

Ibu Widianti made three goddesses in batik, 

representing the three roots/religions/culture Oey Soe Tjoen is part of

A big reason to be in Indonesia now, is the exhibition ‘Oey Soe Tjoen ~ Keteguhan Hati

Merawat Wanisa, Determination to Preserve Legacy, An Art Exhibition From 3 Generations For 100 Years’, that is only open from 25 July until 3 August at TIM in Jakarta (Only two days left! Get your free ticket here!)

At the Oey Soe Tjoen exhibition

Look at this qilin! And the clouds!

Ibu Widianti, the third generation running the famous batikworkshop Oey Soe Tjoen gathered batiks from all over. On loan from private collectors, wearers and many of her own pieces, to show the history, development & hopefully future of OST. I think there are about 100+ batiks on show, showing the 100 year development of Oey Soe Tjoen!

I was very happy to get an invite for the opening on Friday 25 July, but also had a ticket for the next day. Easily could have gone a third time, so much to see and so much to enjoy.

What would this exhibition visit be without running into many familiar faces & dear friends. Rushing towards the opening, outside I heard my name being called by Mas Dewa, my batik buddy from Pekalongan. He and others from Pekalongan just came over one day for the opening and headed back by train at night. Mas Dewa was rocking one of the batiks he inherited from his grandmother, so cool!

Biggest plus of this opening was for sure getting to see even more OST batik. All these ladies & men wearing the actual OST!! Next to these, many worn other great batiks, styled with kebaya’s, beaded shoes and more. Made so many photos of everyone’s looks & shoes!

Even more OST batiks during the opening

Indradjid Sofwan, after many late nights building up, wearing OST

Mas Dewa in his grandmothers sarong, love!

Me with Little Red Riding Hood

Ibu Widianti welcomed us in the space, with a lion dance and opening the doors of a chinese style entrance. She did this every day of the exhibition! Welcoming everyone into her batik world.

The first floor shows the history and development, highlighting their signature style of pagi-sore (day-night batik design) with on one side buketan (bouquet of flowers) and the other side cuwiri (kraton motif with garuda wings and the dancing peacock).

At first glance it is just many of the same thing, and a classic Ibu Widianti for sure got tired of reproducing for customers. But seeing them together, with the different generations versions and in different colours, was a true feast and education as well. 

Second floor shows Ibu Widianti’s artistry. This floor made me emotional. How Widianti search for the balance between traditional, family legacy and finding freedom to create your own story within batik is so inspiring, beautiful, brave and cool. It makes her in my eyes the rockstar of batik! The quality throughout the generations stayed extremity high, with isen-isen (filling motifs) and colour combination that is so fine, it is hard to comprehend this is drawn and dyed all by hand. 

I was so happy seeing all these pieces. Pieces I know from books, but never saw with my own eyes. Pieces that without this exhibition would have only been enjoyed by the collectors owning them. 

Although the exhibition is a celebration, I think it should come also with a warning. While it is still being made, we are losing this too. Ibu Widianti considers herself the last generation, not wanting to force this life(style) upon her children. Also there are no new batikmakers being trained at OST. This means these makers are the last generation of pembatik who have the knowledge on how to create these batiks…It is a scary thought, that among the enjoyment of seeing so much beauty & talent gets maybe overlooked, but it is a reality never the less…

It is amazing to be in this moment in time, being able to witness history being made in Batik, but I hope this is not a mark of the end, but of the future of Batik. Hopefully it inspires a new generation, not only to buy & collected, but to wear and make.

The wearing is going a lot better already, my social media was full of people dressed in style, kebaya kain style, to visit this exhibition. Now we just need to really really start to appreciate the actual makers (financially!) and make sure a new generation can follow in their footsteps, or better their hands (when is someone finally opening a craftcentrum, or educational place for pembatik?!)

Terima kasih Ibu Widinati untuk undang saya dan selamat canting, sukses selalu dan hopefully no more ripping of your sarongs or objects being stolen from the exhibition (who does that?!?)

Posing with Ibu Widianti and Daniel

On Saturday 26 July I was invited to Pak Hartono’s home and look at batik from his collection. I was lucky to see several pieces from his collection over the years (in 2019, in 2022, twice). This visit Daniel & Tony joined with some others. On my request we got to see several ‘Batik kompeni’, batiks with figures on them originally with or without a link to war in them. Daniel requested batiks linked to the exhibition currently in Singapore, signed by Oeij Kok Sing and Jane Hendromartono. Which was amazing! Turns out Pak Hartono’s has many. 

It is always wonderful to get a close look at Pak Hartono’s batiks, discuss their provenance, possible date & more. 

We got to see many more and at the end Pak Hartono shared his new product. A couple years ago he was making very fine, but one side only batik tulis, copies of batik from his collection. But now he is back to making actual copies, these printed textiles are also copies of his collection, but with a clear mark on them not to be confused with real batik, on the side it reads: ‘Textile motif Batik Nitiswastra’. And although my thought on print are known, I was glad to see this was added to clarify. 

Thank you so much for welcoming is and hosting us. Many thanks also to Pak Hartono wife & Mas Dance!

Pak Hartono showing a batik with airballon design

Comparing this batik work to one in a book

When your paspoort function as a design reference

Oey Soe Tjoen, anther maker and Eliza van Zuylen using the same design

Next to seeing many batik, I also got to hang out with friends & colleagues, makan waktu bersama (spending time together).

So happy to catch up with Absa and Asri on their research, work at museums and plans after we got to hang out in Laos last year. The future of textiles is much brighter with these two taking care of them. It is so nice to talk in so much depth on batik, but also textile history, research, exhibitions and preservation.

With Bev at the Kebaya event at Pos Bloc

Also finally met Bev of the instagram Ode to Less. It was so nice working with her for the white kebaya research. She brought her own made white European style kebaya and we talk about how the old ones are made. Looking forward working more on this in the near future, the construction of the kebaya and what they might unravel historically. 

Tony in the beskap at Noni Srikaya

We met at the Kebaya event at Pos Bloc, but turned out it didn’t really start until the evening. Got to visit Tifa’s new store Nona Srikaya, a safespace to berkain & berkebaya! Of cours Toni finds right away this great beskap inspired jacket. I will order a kebaya from there soon, because her style is very cool!

It is even featured in this video promoting berkebaya that was launched on Hari Kebaya >> 

Spend my last morning in Jakarta visiting Museum Mandiri, yes like the bank. This was in the past the office the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (NHM). Build in 1929, opened on 1933, apparently on the ruins Fort Batavia…The new building was named Factorij, which still is above the entrance.

The NHM, or in English Netherlands Trading Society was a Dutch trading and financial company, established in 1824, in The Hague by King William I to promote and develop trade, shipping and agriculture. It was meant to be a replacement of the bankrupt VOC and to generate as much profit as possible for the Dutch economy. NHM traded many things, but what it less know is that one of their bigger trade products were Opium and Cotton. This part of trade was interwoven if you will. The NHM shipped plain woven cotton from the Netherlands, from Twente to be more precise, to Indonesia where it was used in the batik industry! The fine machine woven cotton made it possible to even draw more fine batik. But the NHM also imported imitation batiks to Indonesia, to compete with the actual handmade batiks. They not just imported them, they were the main distributor, places specific orders at cottonprinting companies for specific places in Southeast Asia. NHM exporting Indigo and other raw materials from Indonesia to the Netherlands were it was used within the textile production. Often making its way either back to Southeast Asia or other places colonized by the Dutch. 

Tiles at Museum Mandiri

Old safes in the basement

Not surprisingly, this story is not yet clearly featured in the exhibitions at Museum Mandiri. But it was good to see what was being displayed. At least the history and connected to this place and the VOC & NHM is shared. In the basement, next to all the safes, there is an exhibition on the architecture of the building and photos of all the other NHM buildings spread over Indonesia. 

I especially was fascinated by the tiles and their colour and ritme. They reminded me of the colours RekaLagam has in their pigments (see my previous post). Would be nice/interesting to do something with these pigments & tiles to address the NHM’s textile history.. to be continued… 

Everywhere are these stalls selling red & white for upcoming Independence day celebrations

Batik Nyonyas and grandmothers blankets

This design was first done by Oeij Kok Sing, but made again by her daughter Jane Hendromartono, she included often tiny fish

First room in the exhibition ‘Batik Nyonyas’ highlighting batiks from the end of the 19th century, beginning 20th century made in Pekalongan

Build up of exhibition ‘TAMBAL’ at aNERDgallery

After a full week, I headed on 16 July to Singapore by bus for the weekend. Since I am making an small exhibition there that will open 22 August at aNERDgallery, I wanted to leave some of the stuff I already gathered & brought, there. Also to relax a little bit before going further and to finally see the Batik Nyonyas exhibition.

I arrived in after a quick busride and had a nice easy evening & morning. After some much needed social media updates, I headed out to aNERDgallery. Just to hang out and say hi. Also the artist Adel Ng was coming in to set-up the current exhibition, Tambal, inspired by the quilted blankets her grandmother made, the tambal motif in Batik & her own slow-fashion upcycle brand Muta Wear. She will be aNERDhost, while Tony is on Java, mostly with me. 

Adel Ng upcycle station at aNERDgallery 

Detail of quilted blanket of Adel Ng grandmother

In the early evening I headed to the Batik Nyonyas talk held at ACM, Modernity Unseen, The Free-Spirited Batiks of Nyonya

Oeij Soen King and Her Contemporaries from the North Coast of Java

I booked the bus a day earlier to catch this talk. When I found out the program, I knew I would be in my feelings. In my hurt feelings, but it was also very surprising!

The evening luckily also brought me to textile friends, which whom I had a nice dinner after with much to discuss on the talk & exhibition.

Peranakan Museum in Singapore

The fine mesh showing up on the photos,

 with a little creativity I was able to get okay photos

Next day I finally got to see the exhibition ‘Batik Nyonyas’. Made 800+ photos, normally it would be 100 or so, let’s say I felt really inspired. But also made so many because how it is displayed behind a very fine mesh makes it difficult to take pictures. Deliberate or to protect it, unclear, but I was pretty determined to get details. Who knows when these will be on display again and if I ever get acces to them.

The exhibition tells the story of three generations of batikproducers in Pekalongan on Java in Indonesia, Nyonya Oeij Soen King, her daughter-in-law Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing, and her granddaughter Jane Hendromartono. The first generation started at the end of the 19th century, while the third and last work until 1980’s. The batiks and other objects in the exhibition were kept by the three daughters of the last one. These daughters also provided extra information & stories, which is also shown in a video interview with them. This extra layer, with stories on production, preserverende and clear provenance makes this exhibition pretty unique. How wonderful I get to chance to actual visit. 

One of the earlier organized talks, was with them too. A much watch the video on Youtube ‘Three Nyonyas and an Esteemed Collaborator: Family Memories of Batik Making in Pekalongan’

The three daughters

Old photographs of the batikworkshop shared in the video

The first generation brings some confusion. The sisters say all were made by their greatgrandmother Nyonya Oeij Soen King, but she didn’t sign and all are very different (sounds familiar..). The choice, or belief, to present this pieces all by her, makes for a difficult story to tell. Previously research has been done on the cotton, colour & dye use to determine if one maker could be identified (and now..?). In the catalog was mentioned: 

“A common assumption is that an individual batik workshop would stick to a consistent dyeing practice that differed from other workshops. This was purported in a study by Proaño Gaibor et al., the first technical study of batiks, which concluded that Franquemont's batiks originated from different workshops because of the different dyes identified. However, the present study has shown otherwise.

By including signed batiks of different makers in comparison to Oeij's, the results revealed a wide range of cotton fabric and different dyestuffs for the reds of all four batik makers, without showing a systematic relationship to the maker.” 

Attributed to the first generation, Oeij Soen King

Photo-album gifted to Jasper with enlarged photograph of the ‘jaarmarkt’ exhibition behind it

Snowwhite batik detail, Batik signed by ‘L.Metz’

But my research was based on the specific story that the green used by Von Franquemont was her own unique invention, and therefor we researched all the colours including the green to find out they were all dyed differently, apart from the green that was done all the same in a not secret or special way, but with the oldest dye method known to create green in batik... (read full report here link ) So let’s say their conclusion on our study being wrong, and in fact we conclude the same, is so odd.

During the talk I attended the night before, the researchers explained they could not prove the batiks were made by one person or workshop. (Yes..). And did not claim they were all from the same maker. They also shared they misidentify their secret colour red and a new version of the catalog will be made. Hopefully they will rewrite their conclusion too, I hope.

Display on introduction of synthetic dyes to the batik industry

From Nyonya Oeij Kok Sin's album, 1940s-1950s

Sarongs by Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing and Jane Hendromartono, 

above signed by Jane in 1967, 

sarong below stamped by Oeij Kok Sing, 9 september 1941

For me the main question is, why go through all this afford to present these 18 batiks from one workshop? Wouldn’t it raise more interesting findings if the questions are, were are these batiks from? What are all the differences & what are the similarities? Was she indeed a batikmaker, or could some be her wardrobe or was she perhaps a reseller? I wonder right away, are there marks of wear, or details to link it to other pieces with a clear provenance. 

Anyway, the first section of the exhibition had for me very wonderful signed batiks including one with Snowwhite. It also has an album I would love to get my hands on, a photo-album gifted to Jasper in 1923 to celebrate his annual fair activities. Peter Lee shared some images during his talk and luckily some were used enlarged in the exhibition. Fascinating!

Two hangings with a depiction of Mai Langfang, a Chinese Peking opera artist playing the role of Tiannu Sanhua doing the sleeve dance, left batik by Jane, right by Oeij Kok Sing

Batik by Jane Hendromartono from early 1950's

Batik left signed by J. Jans, 1900's, Batik right signed 'Nj. Oeij Kok Sing P.K.L.' and stamped

In the ‘Batik Nyonyas’ exhibition I connected most to the Batiks from the 19th century, probably because my research is focussed on this period in batik history, but felt another kind of strong connection to Jane Hendromartono story.

Sketch by Jane Hendromartono

Display of the cap items Jane Hendromartono produced

Batik by Jane Hendromartono with little fish detail

The story of Jane Hendromartono is probably the most detailed, since her daughters could re-tell, and certainly the most artistic. Jane experimented a lot, to keep up with fashion trends, market demands and her own interests. 

It was nice that in this part we really get to know the maker, with early drawings, a childhood dairy in Dutch(!!), all kind of business items like stationary, cards. Jane also started producing cap next to her Batik Tulis pieces. The little cap that says ‘100% batik tulis’ took me out, technically the batik tulis would be 99,99% Batik Tulis if this tiny cap is used.

If her grandmother did make the variety the museum is claiming, Jane is indeed a testament to that story. 

I especially liked the 70’s ready to wear section, with maxi skirts & belts, I want all! Especially the skirt in aquagreen!

The exhibition is an amazing celebration of these three generations and a reflection on the history they were part of. A must see, open till 31 August in Singapore!

Read more here on the exhibition: Interview with Peter Lee | “Batik Nyonyas: Three Generations of Art and Entrepreneurship" — Art of The Ancestors | 

Island Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Global Tribal Art News

Hafiz showing his newly bought newly made chintz, including wax resist

Hafiz at aNERDstore heading out with his storytelling stuff

Hafiz Rashid's talk at One Punngolo

On Saturday I enjoyed a talk by Hafiz Rashid at One Punggolo about batik used as a medium for storytelling. Hafiz who is always dressed for the part of historical, fairytale & legends storyteller gave a presentation on the telling on stories to the writing down of stories. How in early books the text are highlighting to read out-loud. He used batiks from his own collection to invite the audience to do some storytelling themselves. It was really interesting to hear how they interpreted the batiks.

Currently I am on Java, I will update my blog & social media whenever I can & wifi allows me ;) ~ thank you for following my journey to Batik