As the home of Batik, this year Indonesia wants to reclaim its throne as the host country of the World Batik Summit 2011. In 2009, UNESCO has acknowledged Batik as one of world cultural heritage, originally from Indonesia. It is one of the oldest textile dyeing techniques from Java Island. The word Batik itself means cloth with little dots. It is one of highly developed art of cloths dyeing using a metal pen-like tool called canting on woven. Each pattern has a meaning that wants to be told by the creator. Sometimes it tells stories about family, royalty, patriotism, war even love. In Central part of Java Island, different patterns of Batik also show different social status. Some said the more intricate patterns it has the higher social status the person is wearing. Some said it is the other way around. Difficult to say which one is correct as nowadays modernism in Indonesia somehow eliminate this difference.
After 14 years of vacuum, Indonesia initiates this event to strengthen Batik position as one of the global cultures. In order to promote this mission, Indonesia invites 11 countries in the world to take active parts of this international event. “This World Batik Summit (WBS) is expected to build enthusiasm towards Batik internationally and to support practitioners and fans of Batik worldwide,” stated Dipo Alam, one of the founders of Yayasan Batik Indonesia (Batik Indonesia Foundation). This year’s event is about facilitating knowledge transfer and evaluating production techniques and marketing methods of Batik. The government would like to take this chance to collect and nurtures Batik home industries and small medium enterprises of Batik. It hopes these front liners will be able to synergize to make Batik as one of tourism icons of Indonesia. Furthermore, Indonesia would like to share and introduce this art worldwide. “This event is a statement that Batik can be developed and made everywhere in the world but its home is still in Indonesia,” said the Minister of Trade and Commerce, Mari E. Pangestu.
The event covers international conferences, photo gallery of honors, meeting between Batik sellers and buyers, summit exhibition and cultural performances. “There will be 11 countries participating in this long awaited event. Those are Malaysia, Singapore, U.K., Tunisia, France, the U.S.A, Philippine, Japan, Germany, Australia and Holland,” said head of the committee of World Batik Summit, Doddy Soepardi during the press conference in Jakarta, Friday (23/9/2011). Until now, there are 117 confirmed international participants and 500 others from Indonesia. The committee targets to have 700 participants in total.
This went will be held at Jakarta Convention Centre (JCC) on September 28th to October 2nd. Everyone is invited.
Painting Batik
