Museum Tours Past Fabrics

Jakarta - Jakarta is home to people from all walks of life. With such diversity, the capital is the ideal place to house collections of artifacts of human civilization.

At the Textile Museum, situated on Central Jakarta`s Jl. K.S. Tubun, people can learn about how fabrics are made and the various difficulty levels involved.

"Weaving is the most sophisticated method of making a fabric," museum employee Misari said Saturday during a museum visit organized by PT Sari Coffee Indonesia (Starbucks Coffee Indonesia).

"For example, it takes nearly a year to make a piece of Geringsing fabric 1 meter long and 60 centimeters wide," she said.

Geringsing fabric, woven by residents of Tenganan village in Bali, is made using a double weave, according to the display information.

Misari said locals used the Geringsing fabric to cover the bodies of people who were ill.

"Locals also wear the fabric in their tooth-cutting ritual," she said.

The museum, on a street overrun with street vendors, owns more than 1,700 collections, 60 percent of which are donations from noted designers such as Ghea Sukasa, Iwan Tirta and Choosy Latu, according to Misari.

The collections include batik from the regions, such as Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Banten, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, West Nusa Tenggara, East Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi and Papua.

The next visit was to the National Museum on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta.

With thousands of collections, the National Museum is the biggest in the country.

The museum displays collections that represent the best of every civilization from prehistoric times until eras when kings and sultans ruled, influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, which were imported through trade.

"Studies show ancient man walked on Java Island 1.5 million years ago," said the head of the museum`s prehistoric collection, Niluh Putu Chandra Dewi.

"The line between prehistoric times and Indonesian history is drawn with an inscription that was found in Kutai (in East Kalimantan) early in the fifth century," she said.

The next trips were visits to the Jakarta History Museum, the Fine Art and Ceramic Museum and the Puppet Museum, all in West Jakarta`s Old Town.

The museum visits, which are part of Starbucks` programs, are expected to promote museums as fun destinations to discover the national cultural heritage, according to the campaign executor, Yuvlinda Susanta.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com
Credit Photo: http://farm1.static.flickr.com

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