Meet the Makers: Invisible maestro, an encyclopaedia of women and ulos on Batak Country

Event Details

Time: 12:30-2:00pm AEDT

In-person only: McDonald Room, Menzies library, ANU

This collaborative ISG between the ANU Indonesia Project and ANU School of Culture, History and Language will include a short documentary screening and ulos exhibition. The showcase will be recorded and shared online on the ANU Indonesia Project YouTube channel after the event. 

About the seminar

Dewi Bukit is a photographer and lecturer who first began researching ulos weaving traditions of the Batak people in 2017, while taking part in the Badan Ekonomi Kreatif’s (BEKRAF) Seniman Mengajar (artists teach) program. Since then, she has developed a strong relationship with the weavers themselves and has led many research and entrepreneurial activities in an effort to empower the weavers to continue their art form in an economically sustainable way. In 2024, she will travel to Canberra with several ulos weavers, who completed a residency at the Australian Tapestry Workshop earlier in the year, to launch her second book documenting ulos creation. The book, titled Ensiklopedia perempuan dan ulos di Tanah Batak (An encyclopaedia of women and ulos on Batak Country), contains 30 profiles of women weavers, their works and stories of their struggle to maintain their culture in its entirety).

The process of creating ulos, like other weaving and dyeing traditions in Indonesia, is highly intricate, time-consuming, and labour-intensive, often competing with cheaper, mass-produced alternatives. As part of her research and advocacy, Dewi has produced a documentary film highlighting Batak weavers’ extraordinary skill and dedication. Additionally, she has created a series of large-scale black-and-white portraits celebrating these women as “maestros”—masters of their art form, deserving of recognition comparable to the status traditionally given to great (white, male) painters.