Lombok Sasak usap. Photo courtesy Ross Langlands.
The textiles of the Sasak people of the island of Lombok, nearest neighbour to Bali in central Indonesia, are surprisingly under-represented in the old colonial collections of Europe. And very few archival photographs depicting the activities of members of Sasak society from the pre-Independence era survive. Since the 1970s, however, with increasing interest in the beauty and social importance of cloth across the entire Indonesian archipelago, the richness and variety of Sasak ritual textile traditions have become evident.
The lecture will be illustrated with images of different textile types and techniques from public and private collections, and with field photographs from the mid-1970s. Members of the audience are more than welcome to bring along examples of Sasak textiles for discussion.
Robyn Maxwell was formerly Senior Curator of Asian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and Senior Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the Faculty of Arts at the Australian National University, Canberra. She has researched, lectured, published and curated exhibitions on Asian art, especially Indonesian textiles, for some 50 years. Robyn is best known for Textiles of Southeast Asia: tradition, trade and transformation, originally published by OUP in 1990. Most recently she has written an introduction to Lombok textiles in Textiles of Indonesia: The Thomas Murray Collection, London, Prestel, 2021.
Lombok Sasak supplementary weft. Photo courtesy of Ross Langlands.
Cost: Taasa Members $25 Non-members: $35
Light refreshments will be served.
Please make all bookings and payments in advance, via this website.
For further information email bookings@taasa.org.au
