Vessels of Becoming with Davina Stephens

A conversation between traditional
and contemporary art with Davina Stephens

July 6th, 2024

Threads of Life Gallery
Lungsiakan, Ubud

Traditional Culture is always evolving, the process of being a function of both resistance and innovation.

For subsistence agricultural communities, cleaving to the precedents of the past has been a matter of survival, where changing what works can be life threatening. For the individuals within these communities, influence from the globalised world has inspired social, economic and political change. As keepers of tradition, the archipelago’s indigenous weavers embrace both these forces. They seek to express their devotion to their customs and ancestors while adapting to a rapidly changing world. Their textiles are vessels for both these potentials, standing firmly in what it has been symbolising, though being offered to the world, all that their makers hope for their communities and families.