Yuchengco Museum Culture Capture Episode 1 - "What Women Weave"

Culture is part of everyday life. It'S how we breathe, we dress, we talk it's how we express ourselves in music and dance in cuisine and in food. Education of this culture is often not done in the country except through printed media. So here the new checco museum we're doing something totally now relevant into the digital space. Our cultural education material from here on is going to move into digital space online so that people from all over the world can actually download and understand the exhibitions we have here. In the you Cheng Co Museum culture is a constantly changing energy. It is about pop indigenous traditional contemporary, also, and this is what we have to try to bring into film into for a discussion into dialogues and conversations online so that even our Filipinos who are abroad, as well as our foreign friends well understand with Philippine culture, is From experts from those who want to share their culture and from the beautiful exhibitions that we have here at the: U chenko museum, the collection of weaving textiles, both the Cordillera and the various other exhibitions we put together have tried to focus on sharing the simplicity of Understanding our indigenous textiles, there is a revival now, in both fashion and in the lifestyle space of being able to use motifs, to use our textiles both for apparel and for home use, and we felt that the designers needed to understand more what this was about. It'S not just about putting a using any textile for any purpose and use when we know that our textiles and our weaving tradition is so rich and offer often very much ingrained with the RIT walls of their of the daily lives of our community and our indigenous Cultural people's, so we needed to bridge this understanding with a whole young generation who think it's just ethnic who look at it from an exclusive space which is culture and not part of daily life. So we're riding this revival of pride in our culture pride in being able to you this textiles and weavings, but making our users us as normal people, the young and those in the non culture field, understand that when they use it, they have to have knowledge about What is they're using and therefore her pride and can share this. This becomes therefore our way of allowing culture to be disseminated and understood and, at the same time, the weaving tradition to continue for livelihood, because at the end of it, our indigenous peoples will just continue doing the same thing, because it is part of their life. So in bridging this, our collection, through an exhibition highlighting the important messages, symbols and stories of these motifs, why the colours are used. This way why the patterns are done such and cannot be done. Another way allows us now to bridge so that designers, who create this other products that are more lifestyle oriented or if people who put this in their homes as part of their interior design, can understand that there is something more than just a piece of cloth. It is a weaving tradition that incorporates the spirituality of our indigenous peoples, the motives that are there. The patterns use, the exact color schemes, for example, that are incorporated for specific designs, are calculated ly, Tver alone per indigenous group per cultural community. This specific individual angle must be seen and understood that when you see Kalinga, it is totally different from that of our marinelle weaving or when you see something like a motif, for example, that it's a star motive. That is seen, for example, in our locus in a belt textile. It'S totally different in in a way by the way it is used when it is from our South and tribes. So the differentiating angles of use of motive of even the way the use of the textile is others would use it as a mile long others would use it just for sometimes tablecloth and others would use it for wreaths, while birth and death. So there's a great differentiation so that, when a textile woven with meaning has a great meaning in that community, woven by a master weaver, it must also be respected in the market space or in our daily life. And this is where we are, I believe, in exhibiting. Such collections, bringing together capsule collections so that people can understand it, and in this series of where we want to showcase a grouping of textiles, you would come to understand a little better that community, so that, in understanding that we become closer to you - and you can Also share it to others, so this is why this must be done because at the end of it, when all is said and done, and all of us are gone from here - those textures remain. The culture will continue and the younger generation of both the weavers and the users will be there. So, wouldn't it be nicer to have a deeper understanding of things woven in some far-off community in the mountains near the waters, come to a cosmopolitan space and potentially even in the global space. There has to be this understanding. Let'S have a differentiation in understanding how the weavers weave there will be those from the indigenous cultural communities where weaving tradition often is imbibed with a spiritual meaning. Then you have the lowland Christian tradition, which has been the areas perhaps of B'nai of Ilocos. The areas where are the Catholic sari, the Christian, the Spaniards, came to colonize us and there was already a acculturation and a fusion of two cultures. This is another grouping. This is often what we call traditional textiles versus that of the indigenous cultural communities, and these are the communities that have not been touched by colonization. Two separate things. Okay, so let us take a look at the weaving of the looms here in the local tradition of the cooperatives, like, for example, in lowland pre places like, for example, in I wear in young out at the 19th century was the center of weaving this area. Would we because of skill because of the signs that were often brought in from Spain and then brought into our local culture, and therefore it does not as much have a spiritual meaning? It has a lot of tradition. You ain't made by the women. It has a sense of design, so we must look at it from that perspective, when we begin to look at indigenous cultural communities, weaving, that is where we begin to put in the perspective of spirituality. A lot of our Weaver's weave will a sense of connectedness to this bigger space, an openness which is connected to the mountains, where they are it's connected to the Seas, and everything is interconnected. This in a way, is very much very Filipino the true essence of the Filipino, so when they weave a design, it was because either their goddess there, a higher belief system, a form of what they call their God or their guides, and guardians and muses have given Them in a sense design, it's a very creative process, because you know how art and creativity, often they say, come from the muses. So this is the same thing you will have them begin to put together designs within the vernacular. The motif vernacular of their different specific indigenous community, for example - and you will see repetitive designs when it comes to stripes parallel with a panel where there is some kind of an anthropomorphic form which is looking abstract. But actually, when you look deeper into that, anthropomorphic form. You will find it is either an animal form. It can also be a the inside tummy of a crocodile that ate a man or it can be like parts of a womb of a woman. You know like is the in the bag or bow in the textile, or the Bugaboos have also this beautiful textiles that are just like flags and it's all stripes and they call it. The Bandera or the T bodies with their unique, unique it cut tradition, which is in a way very similar in Southeast Asia, with this Iike tradition. So there is a sense of uniformity within their vernacular. When I say this is because each indigenous community has a sense of coloration that is uniquely, theirs have a sense of motive that is uniquely theirs and also have a sense of patterning of a repetition and a forming of patterns within the weave. That is why it is important to understand. So that's when you see something stripe. It is not just Kalinga, but it is also by gobo, although material may be different in that one is ibaka and another using cotton or polyester. But at the the uniqueness of each in the mixture of color is what we have to take a look at, and this is where experts come in to be able to share what this is. When you look at the pattern that is repetitive constantly either very meticulously done in a in a very mathematical format, you know if there is a repetition of pattern, this repetition of pattern allows an understanding of eternity. I say this because our Philippine music has the same. It'S a drone, continuous pattern of music and tone continuously happening when this happens, people get it a trance state in music huh. When you look at a repetitive pattern in visual design, you will feel that your eyes can't keep going because you'll know what's going to happen in the next panel in the next panel and a sense of continuity, balance and equals eternity. You know, there's a spaceless feel that they want to get to, even if their textile is only 12 inches wide because of the backstrap loom, maybe 18 inches wide appending under the span of their backstrap loom, especially since majority of our cultural weavers use the backstrap loom. The weaving process is very much ingrained in everyday life, which means it's also that very spiritual space where, when they come to ship in weave it's because it is part of what they're Milani no no their ancestors, their parents have taught them through time. They do not deviate so much from what the motive is, because it is what has been shared. It is like a treasure of the community handed down generation by generation. In that pride happens when a weaver becomes a master weaver in the exquisiteness of that design, and what has happened is that she has channeled the meaning of the motive and the color, even if she has to stay within the vernacular. When I say vernacular that chosen motifs, colors and forms of each group, so we, when we look at different kinds of patterns that are very repetitive, either criss-crossing and vertical the weaver stays within the parameters of the loom in creating the eternity that is there. If geometry would bring us a sense of perfection harmony in a way, it is very much sacred geometry, which is parallel to that of the universe and the cosmos. This is what the weavers tried to do in their little space. They try to bring the bigger space here for us to contemplate in the beauty of their design. So if you see a star, then a stripe that happens then another empty panel. It is the same as when you look up to the sky. The stars are not clumped together, they are in a nice pattern and they try to put that in the same space where it is in. When you see panels where there is human forms right, it's still part of that cosmic cosmology in that space of the textile. So it's a very spiritual when you begin to really look deeper into the design, specifically for indigenous cultural community textiles, because it's really it's just um, it's just part of their life. They don't have to think too hard. You know they don't have to say I will. I make this blue here or make this red their sense of individuality. Isn'T there it's about being part of a community part of a weaving process, part of a belief system, so all of us in this community weave the same even if one weaver might be better in this design or technical in this one. But within that shared belief system is a shared expression of a shared form, and this is our little universe. The motives of all our indigenous weaving woven textiles come from what they see around them. They see a horse or a caribou and a man they put that bear in some kind of simplified motive. They see the star, so there's a beautiful star. They see a bigger star through there's a bigger star. They see, for example, a mountain, so mountains are created in a very abstract form, so through time, man is always simplified. It'S just the way it is in expressing art the simpler. It is sometimes the more the deeper the sense of the intangible that is present. So, within the patterns that are beautiful, we need to see that there is a whole dimension of meaning, so when they want one, we were decides that he/she or sometimes he, but mostly our sheets, are going to do patterning, for example, of all the crocodiles. So the crocodiles are there, because you will see now that they're a very much part of daily life and they must either give meaning to that relationship with crocodile or they must give a sense of its a life, meaning actually that's what it is. So when you look at the patterns repeated, it's just again part of that cosmology of what they're trying to do the pic. I think that when we look at motifs, sometimes two motives that are different are put together. There'S a story: sometimes panels will find a whole storyline of different motives, and this is when the weaver begins to be a storyteller. There'S two. Ah, you have the very fantastic weaving that is done on a very trance-like channel state and we have our master weavers. Really fantastic with they become almost like mob violence and channelers, but by Lanny's, like you know your your precess that can bring down that that form, but you also have storytellers within a tribe that attempts to do this and I've seen beautiful textiles that sometimes have different Motives not so structured in pattern, but it's already telling a story I I had always. I always believed that the cultural community carry a shared belief system, so the egos space of which is very Western and in our in our contemporary culture. That ego space of this is my art. This is my way of doing it. It'S really not there or should not really be there. What has happened is that, because of recognition of exemplary work in the Philippines, we have what we call the mandala condom by an awards which identifies our master weavers and makes of them personalities that, in a way are our does not really go in a communal space. It it's both ways not because by identifying a master weaver, then it gives her the responsibility to share this one with the next generation. But in the tradition of a group it is a natural recognition without having an award. But but that's another, that's another story. We live in the world where you know the ego needs to be to be shown and the awards are given and that's fine, but in their own space, where it is. The real-life way of this is a natural respect of being able to learn from a master weaver, and the master weaver in a natural way must teach the next generation, because it is her right as the it is like her I'm duty right. It is her duty of taking down something perfecting her craft into a level of artistry, taking down the motives, keeping it as exquisite as possible and then sharing not just a skill but the meaning of what she's doing and the motive. The motive of the of the community - it is a shared duty for the photo older, wiser master weavers that they must teach it to the young. Now. The challenge is that, because our culture's are changing, we have the young in a different mindset already of just going off to go to the Kohl Center because they make more money. So the material mindset has began to happen. So there needs to be a way of letting the young, indigenous women and men understand the value of what they're doing, because there is a way of livelihood, and this is where, as a museum, we want to celebrate the beauty and exquisiteness of the high-end art so That when people see it like designers, they can now move it into something more lifestyle for everyday use. So there is really a purpose. Why we're making sure we with document we cut a lot, because you know without the the role of museums to document these things. You will have innovations happening and before you know it, the young, indigenous Weaver, of a cultural community, for example like the phenolic of the tea body. They will weave what they like, because now I'm influences are everywhere. City comes in you know, technology brings something new that form that is uniquely theirs will get lost if we do not have our museums document this or documentaries and catalogs that do this kind of cultural, a heritage documentation. So this is what we're doing we're bridging precisely this need our indigenous communities use their textile for specific purposes. Each group has a form it has a cut. The bago bow men's trousers are totally different from that example of the marinelle. It'S just totally different. The way the women wrap in their bag or bow lower skirt, for example, it's totally different by the way the Kalinga is in the north - would do it not so the use and styling of their textile again is also unique to them. Now, what happens because of culture now mixing and it's beginning to be a really a fusion of the contemporary and and the very traditional and the local we're having now forms that are very Western or contemporary, like you know, specific short dresses and they just use the Texas of the indigenous, so that it can be worn for daily life, which is fine. I believe that we want to get it to this space without really losing or forgetting what is indigenous. There are levels of cultural. How do you say? I would say a stretch of culture, because culture is in every everywhere. Now you have our indigenous cultures, a part of which we must document and keep. Then there must be an innovation space where we revitalize the tradition right, so that this tradition now moves into everyday life that could be used in a pub contemporary space, and yet the link is clear without it looking too ethnic, you know, there's all these different nuances Of how we can bring our textiles to the use in daily life, and I believe that until all of us are conscious of it, then the real pride when you say we're your culture with pride is because deep down inside. You know why. Why you're, using that? You begin to be wiser, I believe, if you began, to use the power textile, for example, in a power suit, it makes it more um. It makes it more meaningful right or, for example, a happy textile for more casual wear to make you happy. There'S all these intangibles that if we looked at it, not just I'm going to get that motif from here and I'll put it right here and then what I'm using Filipino okay for those uninformed and that's why we want to inform, because we can merge where we Are merging this and yet keep our tradition? That is where it comes from fully documented, so that it's a it's a clear different levels and we can each step in one level, depending on where we are right. Cultural appropriation has become a buzzword in that comes up, especially when our designers and our young entrepreneurs are doing clothing and fashion accessories begin to take design into their own design. I mean take the indigenous textile design into their own design and and they think that it's their design. I think we have to be very. We have to have a fine line between this now when you begin to use that which is the indigenous peoples, as is exactly as what it is, it is their design. You might have a cut, that's yours, but that's their design, their motive on your clothing. So you must give proper credit to the group or the triad, the indigenous community, that is making this and the meaning for this there's a whole space where sometimes a lot of our designers would get what is available there and that put it under their name. And that's it and say this is Filipino: alright, it's a it's a brand issue in the market space. You see it's two totally different things, and this is where intellectual property of our indigenous communities must begin to be looked at. Our intellectual property has now a legal process where our community groups are not going to do it. Can you imagine you have to get your motive? You have to go to the Department of Trade and Industry. Have it marked put the paperwork? Do this every year? Take note so that you can use that it's crazy, but we are actually trying to do this even in national development work by various groups, to see how we can keep that intellectual property there. It might not be so bad for us in the local space, but the moment foreign groups come and get our designs that are ours and our motives and then mass-produce it, and it has happened many times where our it cut has been taken by foreign people mass-produced Into factories spa, you know produced into through big machines into beautiful textiles, with our multi F so and then the they, the indigenous groups, don't even get anything. Nothing, not even a mansion. Nothing! It'S like that motive for stolen, so they could have gotten some monies from this right because it's their it's their own motive. So we need to be able to all of us be be part of the community as people in the museum people who work within the trade area and entrepreneurs and the designers it's part of a growing direction. Let us place it correctly in that we do not lose out or are small people's do not lose out on what is really theirs. So when a designer comes, if their motive is inspired by that they change it, then you say it is inspired by right. I mention the group right. It will always be helpful to match the group, because remember your specific lifestyle. Commodity product is part of cultural education. You teach people your culture. If you give this gift of a beautiful bag or a jacket that actually made use of a textile from Maguindanao, for example, that's major that you could teach people but not everybody's there again. The mindset of our designers, because it's natural is this - is my design but you're inspired by an indigenous group, so be very clear to mention the names, especially if you're getting it exactly. If that textile is exactly what you're going to use mention it right, the dress. Might be yours, but the textile is not. The motive is not so. This is where there's a gray area, because some designers will see, but this is totally my creation now. Well yes, but you got exactly that same textile. You didn't relieve it yourself. I think your new thing you did relieve it, you didn't add your color, you didn't change it. So that's not really yours! Your the dress is yours. You design the dress, but the textile is theirs. So we need to to honor this, because if we cannot stand for them also, who will these people are in a space of their own? They will continue weaving and we don't want to take advantage. We want to help so as designers and us people in the brand space in the market space. Let us just make sure we share. We share this story. We share the fact where it comes from, because at the end, it also will bring other people there to them to help them with livelihood. Also, the global world today is totally homogeneous. The same you go to a mall you'll have all the same brands, global brands everywhere in the world. So what's different. This is where culture becomes capital and this whole value of culture as capital has become, or has started as a trend very consciously, perhaps maybe a decade back by few groups now, and mostly those in the space of where culture is because they could see the the Onslaught of a global space coming in and and the small people are dying there, the cultures dying. There'S no money, that's poor right, so the need to survive to keep livelihood alive to make themselves feel part of a global space that is encroaching there. What'S where things began to happen, so the value of in a way the global globalization was to be able to bring a global world, often asleep from culture right, the roots of it closer now, in the past 10 years, there's been a whole revival of this. It'S like it's like understanding that if I go for example and see the H & M's at the star boxes and all the brands around what's different where's, the unique spirit you'll find that in the groups, indigenous groups and globally in the world, it could be anywhere From a mayan woven textile, you know to a to a tech textile to a growth tech start Kalinga. So all of this are coming from the roots of cultural communities which carry the DNA of a country of a culture here in the country we have so much from north to south. Imagine seven thousand one hundred islands each of those indigenous communities. I can't even I don't even have the number there's so many of them, but each of that is rich. It'S so rich with forms and motifs and color and expression as all countries have for those countries that are so global that do not have this. They go to areas like Africa and Latin America to Asia, precisely because these are where the the culture bearers are, you know, and in our country this revival it's beautifully seen right now in the space of fashion, because it's what people can relate to it's often hard To relate, for example, to dance, because that everybody's gon na dance in a traditional way or well music is there but more in fashion, because everybody has to wear something and as a choice, what to wear. So it's it's a revival and it's because culture has become capital. What will make me unique when I go, for example, tour convention internationally, because I'm wearing a beautiful top that is finely hand-woven first as a jacket I bought in a big department store right. I don't care how beautiful you are with the jewelry and it might be so contemporary. That'S fine, but what will make me stand out in an international space and you will find this in all international conferences are beautiful indigenous textiles that are often used traditionally and a lot right now. Revised revitalized are created more for daily, wear and contemporary wear and that's the revival, because when you go out there in the world, even here in the Philippines, you go out on major convention. It'S like you're carrying with pride your culture. If this is our only way to say, I'm app Filipino and look at the beauty of style, but look at the hand-woven meaning I carry in this beautiful style, you're already global, because that's a capital you put in the world, not just in the Philippines. You put it out into the world that becomes its added value right, because anybody can buy a jacket in any big department store that is expensive. But to find this very hard to weave specific, beautiful textile in your jacket, you will eventually have somebody say: where did you get that jacket? Why is it so unique? What does he? What is it about it? That has a different feel? That'S all I can say it's a field, so there are ways of using it. You can go very ethnic, very boham right and you can dress like them, but this is very hard to do every day unless you're, a gypsy bohemian or you know it's very hard. Most of us are in the day, jobs we travel were in in the cities. So how can we now incorporate get inspired, revitalize tradition in a place where what you're wearing does that have to scream ethnic right? This is have to scream ethnic, but you know it's woven by our contemporary our indigenous groups, baby, the motif. Is there it's more subtle? Maybe colors have changed a little, and this is again I'll have to say this is where we need to look at the value of keeping culture documented, as is, and that innovating you can't mix them. It has to go parallel because innovation and revitalizing, that of tradition, is your continuing process of culture being expressed, and meanwhile we keep documenting the DNA. You know it's a DNA. We can't lose totally because maybe what 50 years from now that phenolic will look totally different because maybe we're using metallic threads with motive right and maybe there's a new amber color whatever. But we will have something to look back on and say: oh, this is how they did ibaka they founded it. They had to color it with vegetable dyes, a very hard technique. They had to weave it and put it together in a in a way where it is about it, Catholic, a tradition and what is that it cut edition? It'S not happening anymore now. 10-15 years example, 50 years down the line with this metallic it cut. You know why, because maybe maybe the place of the tribes are gone, I don't we don't know, but we need to document in a photograph in a piece in the museum right. We keep it there because it is our DNA and that's why. At the end, we revitalize our culture. Yes, we continue our tradition to be alive. Yes, but let us not forget we give credit to where it came from. We give a value to the inspiration from when it came from, and we keep and document that which is truly, that of the groups and that's what the museum work is all about. The role of the you chenko museum is to give this broader context to a new fad, maybe a new movement that is happening. It'S great. A lot of young entrepreneurs are coming in designing. You know a yak, an outfit and using a specific textile, but I believe that at the end of it, the entrepreneurs must also dive into the material they're using right, because I not just say oh I'm using you up and today and what is yoga and not A dive dive - and this is where our role as museum is about, because, in the broader context of everything, the basic force and our statement is that of culture. That is changing that we cannot not look at because when we go into a global space, not just in fashion, but in anything we do. What separates and/or makes us unique. Is our culture, so this whole movement of knowing your culture being proud about. It really means you need to know your culture, which is why it's important to look at exhibitions why it is important to visit museums, why collections of indigenous communities are important because it gives you that fuel to go deeper so to look at this is the reason Why we are doing the series, precisely because education and cultural education gives you that added value, whether you're entrepreneur, a speaker, a designer somebody going out there carrying a part of our culture right so carrying it with depth? Carry it with pride. But you can only do that if you were to study and learn more, which is what our role is through. Our cultural education, materials