Maiden award programme serves to uphold textile-making heritage
The inaugural Hasanah Gold Threads Awards is meant to preserve and sustain Malaysia’s diverse textile-making tradition, as well as to further uphold the appreciations towards this craft.
According to Yayasan Hasanah trustee and managing director Dato’ Shahira Ahmed Bazari, this award programme is an initiative under the ‘Art and Heritage Pillar’ of Yayasan Hasanah, which is a foundation under Khazanah Nasional.
“We are investing and working hand in hand in textile conservation works as we are facing a cultural crisis, where our arts, cultural, and heritage practitioners are growing older.
“Many textile traditions with their heritage motifs and legacy, as well as weaving techniques, are on the verge of being lost in history, or facing extinction,” she said that during a press conference on the ‘Hasanah Threads Awards’ at the Arts and Crafts Gallery of Borneo Cultures Museum here yesterday.
Adding on, Shahira said many ‘adiguru’ (masters of the craft) had reached old yet, and yet, there was no one who could to continue the legacy of these textile-related crafts.
“In recognising this, Yayasan Hasanah is working closely, through various efforts, with its partners in various Malaysian states into breathing new life into our textiles and restoring them to their former glory.
“The inaugural Hasanah Gold Threads Awards programme sets out to not only preserve and sustain Malaysia’s diverse textile-making tradition, but to also ignite a greater appreciation of the craft in action, in usage, and in demand, so that our artisans would feel appreciated and motivated to produce and create more, and to nurture an economic environment where the national cultural heritage is brought back,” she said.
It is informed that the Hasanah Gold Threads Awards programme is run in partnership with Tanoti Sdn BHD and Asean Handicraft Promotion and Development Association (Ahpada), with the support of the Ministry of Finance.
Meanwhile, Tanoti Sdn Bhd cofounder and awards producer, Jacqueline Fong, said they applied for Yayasan Hasanah for its special grant because they had an art and heritage pillar focused on preserving and conserving textiles.
“We thought of recognising those who put in the real work to produce beautiful textiles, those who pushed boundaries in their own techniques in the materials designs and collaborations, and those who had been very committed to their own textile disciplines.
“This awards programme does that, along with keeping our beautiful textiles alive. We want another generation to be able to enjoy our textiles, whether they are wearing it, looking at it as art, or if they’re able to earn money from it,” said Fong.
She said having been working in this field for so long, she understood how much labourintensive it could be just to make a cloth.
“For a weaver, it’s very lonely. She works on the cloth day and night, week after week, month after month, and there’s nobody to give feedback, support or encouragement.
“It’s a very lonely existence (for the weaver) and thus, we want to build an awareness of this labour for people who make crafts, especially those hardly acknowledged for their crafts until they finish them, and then having to figure out how to sell them.”
Among those present at the press conference were Ahpada honorary secretary-general and awards co-producer Elaine Chan, and College of Creative Arts for Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) lecturer Irma Murni Ismail.
Meanwhile, the Hasanah Gold Awards event was staged on the museum’s auditorium yesterday and there, the winners of six categories were honoured, namely ‘Embroidery and Embellishment’, ‘Ikat’ (Tying Technique), ‘Plaiting’, ‘Supplementary Weft’, ‘Beadworks’, and ‘Drawing and Stamping’.
Each category, in turn, had two sub-categories: ‘Best Traditional’ and ‘Best Innovative’, as well as a ‘Special Mention Award’.
Presenting the awards was Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri.