Online Symposium, Irresistible

Inspired by issue 117: Irresistible of Selvedge Magazine we are inviting a discussion around the irresistible nature of resist-dyeing techniques around the world.

Human beings are hard-wired to find patterns everywhere. Patterns created through resist dyeing are found all over the world, and from intricate multi-coloured ikat in Uzbekistan and the 16-stage process used to create Ajrak in Gujarat. Is it the place it holds in much of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage that makes resist-dyeing irresistible?

2024 is the International Year of Batik, see batikinternational.com for details, and in issue 117, collector Rudolf Smend explains why he is drawn to the apex of the craft practices in Indonesia. Yet this one technique has many forms of expression, from the Arabic-inspired designs of Nazek Hamdi to the precise patterns achieved in Miao batik from China. Is it its versatility that makes resist-dyeing irresistible?

Join a line-up of speakers of textile practitioners, academics, designers, and artists, each of whom approaches the subject from different perspectives and enriches the event with unique stories of resist-dyeing.

List of speakers:

You can download the full list of speakers and descriptions of the talks HERE.

Amanda Kirby Okoye
Amanda Kirby Okoye is a lawyer, historian, founder and creative director of Joliba Africa, an organization established in 2013 to address the need for educating, empowering and raising awareness of Nigerian history and culture. Drawing on her extensive decade-long experience in the heritage sector, her primary goal is to preserve Nigeria's artifactual, written, and pictorial heritage, ensuring accessibility for all. Additionally, she strives to engage the audience and enhance their experience continually. Her ultimate objective is to inspire Nigerians to explore their country's rich history through visual communication.

Aranya Natural is a pioneering natural dye organisation specialising in eco-friendly fabric dyes, set up in the tea-growing hilly region of Munnar, India in the early nineties to provide employment for the local community. They continue to empower specially-abled artists to handcraft Shibori, batik, block & eco-prints on natural dyed. 

Aziz Murtazaev is a master ikat maker and founder of Crafts Studio IkatUz, a family business and cooperative of independent ikat weavers and natural dyers based in Margilan, Uzbekistan, giving Ikat masters and weavers a way to sell their products regionally and internationally, preserving traditional craftsmanship and cultural values, their development and transfer to the next generation.

Dr. David Paly has been collecting textiles for more than fifty years. The ikat collection, inspired by The Dyer's Art by Jack Lenor Larsen, has grown since 1976 to include examples from most of the world's traditional practitioners of this demanding, visually evocative technique. His recent publication, Global Ikat- Roots and Routes of a Textile Tradition, was published by Hali in 2023.

Lee Talbot is a Curator of Textile Museum Collections at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum in Washington DC. He joined The Textile Museum in 2007, specialising in the history of East Asian textiles.

Muhayo Alieva of Bibi Hanum
BIBI HANUM™ is a socially responsible enterprise that creates garments and accessories using traditional hand-woven silk cotton ikat fibre. Founded by Muhayo Alieva its mission is to provide economic opportunities for women while preserving Uzbekistan’s rich cultural and ethnographic heritage.

Dedicated to bringing the finest handmade products crafted with utmost care and attention to detail, their unique collections feature exquisite silk ikat fabrics and dresses that showcase the rich heritage of traditional craftsmanship.

Nike Davies-Okundaye 
Nike, founder of Nike Art Center in Nigeria, a five-story gallery jam-packed with around 8,000 different pieces of artwork is the largest gallery in West Africa, open to the public for free and regularly features up-and-coming African artists alongside household names. Nike grew up steeped in her family’s culture of textile making, dyeing, weaving, and painting. She’s credited with teaching thousands of young Nigerian artists over the last 40 years, as well as providing exhibition space for showing works.

Noel Chapman is a textile specialist and founder of Bleu Anglais which sells original Chinese indigo paste-resist patterned cloth which he has collected over the last thirty years.

Ptolemy Mann
Since 1997 Ptolemy Mann has been running her own studio practice, which she established after graduating from Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art. Her unique approach to hand dyeing and weaving wall-based, architectural artworks has become the basis for a modern-day Bauhaus philosophy of art making and design underpinned with intelligent colour theory.

Rudolf Smend is a batik collector and the owner of Galerie Smend in Cologne. He was first introduced to batik in Yogyakarta, Central Java in 1973. His gallery, which exhibits works by international textile artists, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Smend has edited and published numerous books on silk painting and batik, including; Batik: Javanese and Sumatran Batiks from Courts and Palaces, Rudolf Smend Collection (2000), Batik: 75 Selected Masterpieces. The Rudolf Smend Collection (2006), to name a few.

William Ingram, co-founder of Threads of Life, a Bali-based social enterprise that has worked with over 1000 traditional weavers and their families in 50 communities on 12 Indonesian islands since 1997. William will present, Ikat as Resistance: Natural Dyed Ikat vs Modernity in Indonesia. 

Cancellation policy
All orders for online talks are non-refundable.