Review

Collection offers cultural insight to 'textured soul of Java'

Indonesian batik fabric of the collection of Ann Dunham is touring the country and making a stop in her home state of Kansas. Photo: Maria Creyts

Regnier Center
(adjacent to Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art and where the JCCC Collection Focus — Contemporary American Indian Art and JCCC Collection Focus — Contemporary Latino Art exhibitions are on display) at Johnson County Community College
Overland Park, Kansas
March 7 — 12, 2010

Batiks collected by the late Ann Dunham, mother of President Barack Obama, are on view at the Regnier Center at Johnson County Community College this week through Friday, March 12. This showing in Kansas, Dunham’s birth state, is one stop on a national tour. The exhibition is presented by the Indonesian Embassy in Washington D.C. and the family of Maya Soetoro Ng who was born in Indonesia to Ann Dunham and her second husband, the Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.* The young future president, Barack Obama, also lived in Indonesia with his family from the age of 6 until he was sent to school in America when 10 years old.

A view of batiks in the Dunham collection. Photo: Maria Creyts

In literature accompanying the exhibition, Dr. Soetoro Ng writes:

"When we were living in Yogyakarta (on the island of Java)… beside the bird market... I could smell the hot wax from those making batik in the labyrinth of sellers behind our house.  …(T)he batiks in this collection are valuable only insofar as they help to understand the artistic variety and the textured soul of Java. In collecting Javanese art, including batik, our mother was learning to love Java. She was studying the patterns and textures of the place and making it her own… She was becoming fully bicultural… In her later years, she only felt comfortable when she could occupy both cultures simultaneously… I believe that she truly belonged to both Indonesia and the United States."

Indonesian batik patterns are varied in color and design. Photo: Maria Creyts

A detail view of one of the batik patterns in the Dunham collection. Photo: Maria Creyts

Ann Dunham, Ph.D., was an economic anthropologist and rural development consultant who worked with micro-credit programs that helped batik artists and other village artisans in Indonesia. In 1995, she succumbed to ovarian cancer. The 2009 posthumous publication of her dissertation, titled Surviving Against the Odds, Village Industry in Indonesia, came about in part through the efforts of her daughter, Maya.

A detail view of one of the batik patterns in the Dunham collection. Photo: Maria Creyts

Though considered to be fine examples of classic Indonesian batik, the cloths in Ann Dunham’s collection probably cost only a few dollars each at the time they were acquired. Prior to dying, some of these designs were drawn out freehand with a tjanting needle that dispenses hot wax into the weave of the fabric — the use of which was demonstrated at the exhibition’s reception Sunday.

Artisans demonstrated batik-making techniques during the opening reception at Johnson County Community College on Sunday. The women in the foreground are drawing designs that their colleague is tracing with the tjanting needle. The hollow tool is used to apply designs in hot wax, which resists the dye. Photo: Maria Creyts

A lecture on the batik process by Jo Randolph, adjunct professor, interior design, JCCC, is scheduled at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, in room 270 of the Regnier Center.

Exhibition hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (except Wednesday, March 10, when the hours are 3-7 p.m.) Free and open to the public.

A view of one of the batiks in the Dunham collection. Photo: Maria Creyts

For more information, contact Carolyn Kadel, program facilitator, International Education, 913-469-8500, ext. 3496, or by e-mail. Read the press release from the school here, where you can see a photograph of Marti Wilson, commissioner for Indonesia, Ethnic Enrichment Commission of Kansas City, Missouri. She welcomes inquiries about batik, the exhibition, and Indonesian culture and can be contacted at 913-269-1710 or by e-mail.

(Additional visual arts events in the area happening today and this week can be found here.)

A detail view of one of the batik patterns in the Dunham collection. Photo: Maria Creyts

Note:
*In addition to Johnson County Community College, fellow additional presenters of this exhibition include the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia in Chicago, and the Indonesian Community of Greater Kansas City.

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