Tradition Keepers

For over four thousand years, the indigenous peoples of the Indonesian archipelago have conveyed their worldview from generation to generation through the textile arts. Myths, cosmology, histories, and ritual practices are all associated with the making and use of textiles that in turn act as reminders supporting oral tradition. And in a lifetime, these traditions are in crisis. Consumer goods used in place of traditional craft objects no longer embody oral knowledge, fragmenting and diminishing indigenous culture. In the face of this challenge, there are champions of tradition all across the archipelago, working to support the continued expression of their textile cultures.

Threads of Life and Asa Film's Tradition Keepers documentaries take us to the indigenous communities Threads of Life works with across Indonesia to tell stories of personal challenge and cultural survival that go beneath the surface of the archipelago's textile arts into a world of rituals and ancestors, cosmology and mythology, social and ecological wisdom. Episodes take place across Indonesia, telling the life stories of those working to maintain their textile arts, showing the complexity of their work, placing their art within a living culture, and showing the challenges they face passing on their knowledge.