Batik is big in Malaysia. Well not as big as it is in Indonesia, but I can safely say it is a BIG effort with so many activities promoting Malaysian batik in Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) and with key people from around the world who champions batik convening at the KLCC convention center for the second Kuala Lumpur International Batik (KLIB) from 30th Nov – 2nd Dec 2007. The first KLIB was held in 2005.
I had the privilege of being invited as a foreign speaker because of my MA thesis about innovating batik-painting for contemporary practice attracted their attention. It addresses the presuppositions that is related to the medium and my experimentations for creating post-modern works of art. The event had the support of the Malaysian Government and was managed by an NGO, The Yayasan Budi Penyayang Malaysia. The Malaysian host did their best with regards to hopitality, so Mr. foreign speaker from the not-so-far-away-land here was given his plane ticket, greeted at the airport, checked into a cosy room at the Traders hotel with a magnificient view of the Petronas twin towers, attended to by a dedicated liason personnel at my beck and call and stuffed myself silly with sushi and sashimi buffet every night. Burrp!
It was not all fun. The proceedings was a serious affair when speakers after speakers from Malaysia and abroad spoke about batik from diverse perspective ranging from art, business, culture, antiquity, history, fashion, intellectual property, even branding and my personal favourite – eco friendly natural dying alternatives. My presentation talks about batik practices in Singapore where there is no more mass production but mostly as an artistic medium and the practices of the few batik artists in Singapore.
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