Artistry in diversity

Heritage design comes alive at the Peranakan Museum with a visual journey through one family's batik business

- Chantal Sajan

The Peranakan Museum's latest exhibition, which presents about 200 heirloom batik textiles and accompanying objects such as accessories, zooms in on three Chinese Peranakan women from the northern Javanese port city of Pekalongan who helped shape batik-making in Indonesia.

The showcase, Batik Nyonyas: Three Generations Of Art And Entrepreneurship, ends on Aug 31. It invites visitors to explore the interwoven stories of family, creativity and business acumen.

What makes the contributions of Nonya Oeij Soen King, her daughter-in-law Nonya Oeij Kok Sing and her granddaughter Jane Hendromartono stand out is that each artist navigated political, cultural and economic challenges from the 1890s to the 1980s to stay focused on one thing: innovations in batik design.

Batik is a Javanese term that refers to the technique of creating patterns on cloth by drawing or stamping with a wax-resist process before dyeing.

The wax can be applied as a drawing with a canting (pronounced "chanting") or batik pen, or as a repeat pattern stamped with a copper block called cap (pronounced "chahp").

Peranakan historian and author Peter Lee says batik has been in existence for centuries. The earliest examples - found in the Taman Peninsula near the Black Sea in the fourth century BCE, and in Niya, Xinjiang, in the second century CE - exhibit Hellenistic influences.

Many examples of Chinese Tang Dynasty batik were found in Dunhuang, as well as Chinese and Japanese versions in the Shoso-in Imperial Treasury dating from the eighth to 10th centuries.

Around the 19th century CE, Javanese batik became the source of inspiration for versions made in Europe and South-east Asia.

DYEING TO INNOVATE Mr Lee - who is also the co-curator and lead researcher of Batik Nyonyas - worked with curators from the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) and Peranakan Museum, as well as scholars, donors and designers, to bring the exhibition to life.