President Obama's Mother's Collection of Indonesian Batik Textiles on Exhibition in the US

[Turborama]

The Obamas' Indonesian batik to be exhibited in US

Lilian Budianto, The Jakarta Post, 06/05/2009 1:40 PM

Ann Dunham, mother of US President Barack Obama, kept a vast collection of traditional Indonesian batik clothing, from the time she spent completing her doctorate in Yogyakarta, in the late 80s and early 90s.

After Dunham passed away in 1995, her daughter Maya Soetoro Ng, born from an Indonesian father, inherited the collection that she now keeps in a family home in Chicago.

After being in storage for many years, twenty pieces from Dunham's batik collection will now be exhibited in six cities in the US - Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New York and Washington D.C - from May to August 2009. The exhibition has been organized by the Indonesian Embassy in the US and its consulate general offices.

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"Dr. Ann Dunham believed that batik embodied the essence of the culture and tradition of the place that batik comes from; that is Indonesia," said Indonesian Ambassador to the Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat.

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The exhibition will end in Washington D.C. on August 8, after which the batik exhibition will be open to the public at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., From Aug. 9 to 23.

From: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/06/05/the-obamas039-indonesian-batik-be-exhibited-us.html


Kain panjang (long cloth used as lower body wrapper; detail)
Java, Yogyakarta
Ann Dunham Collection No. 10

A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama's Mother and Indonesian Batiks
August 9-23, 2009

For two weeks only this summer, batik patterned textiles from the collection of Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother, will be on view at The Textile Museum (Washington DC). This showing is the final stop of a national tour of the exhibition, which is on view in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York between May and August.

Early in her life, Ann Dunham explored her interest in the textile arts as a weaver, creating wall hangings in earthy shades of brown and green for her own enjoyment. Upon moving to Indonesia in the 1960s with her son Barack Obama, she was naturally drawn to the vibrant textile arts of her new home and began to amass the collection from which the exhibition objects are drawn. Javanese batiks — fabrics decorated using a wax-resist dyeing process — were readily seen on city and village streets in this Southeast Asian nation at the time. The wide variation in the batiks on view reflects the range of colors and of patterns, both classic and contemporary, that captured her imagination, and provides a window into the rich culture from which these fabrics originated.

From: http://www.textilemuseum.org/exhibitions/upcoming/A_Lady_Found_a_Culture.htm

ETA:

Ann Dunham’s batik collection to be on view at TM

Washingtonians and visitors to the nation’s capital will not want to miss this unique look at the Obama family and the Southeast Asian culture from which these fabrics originated! A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth will be on view at The Textile Museum August 9-23, 2009. The Textile Museum is presenting the exhibition in coordination with the Embassy of the Indonesia and co-hosting a gala event with the embassy at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Saturday, August 8. The exhibition is made possible with the support by President Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro Ng, and her family.

Ann Dunham loved and collected many handcrafted objects, including textiles. As a teenager, she wove wall hangings in earthy shades of brown and green for her own enjoyment. After marrying Lolo Soetoro and moving to Indonesia in the 1960s with her son Barack Obama, she was naturally drawn to the vibrant textile arts of her new home. She began to amass a collection of Javanese batiks — fabrics patterned by using a wax-resist process — from which this exhibition is drawn. These textiles were readily seen on city and village streets in this Southeast Asian nation at that time.

Her interests in batik patterned cloth were complex. She did not acquire rare or expensive pieces, but rather contemporary examples that were an expression of a living tradition, patterned with both classic designs and those of passing fashion. The lives of the batik makers also fascinated her. While earning degrees in anthropology from the University of Hawaii in the 1970s and 1980s, she focused on how to help craftspeople, like those creating batik in Indonesia.

She worked with the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and later with USAID and the World Bank, guiding projects beneficial to poor women through micro and small enterprises. She eventually set up microcredit projects all over Indonesia as well as in Pakistan and Kenya.

The wide variation in the batiks on view in this exhibition reflects the range of colors and patterns that captured her imagination and provides a window into Indonesian culture.

From: http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=73387

[goclark]

1. Lovely nt

[MoonRiver]

2. Wonderful!

As an aside, I wonder why we never hear her referred to as "Dr. Dunham?" Jill Biden, for instance, is almost uniformly referred to as "Dr. Biden," but they both have/had Ph.D's. :shrug:

[HOLOS]

3. Beautiful