Patterns of Everyday
Isabella Carreras & Kerstin Doble, 2019
In April 2019 Kerstin Doble (Pavilion) and artist Isabella Carreras took part in a two-week residency in Indonesia through the West Yorkshire West Java Cooperative Movement. The residency took place at Jatiwangi Art Factory (JaF) a former ceramic tile factory located in the post-industrial village of Jatisura in West Java.
They built connections between communities in West Java and West Yorkshire through a new international textiles project led by young people.
Working in partnership with Jatiwangi Art Factory and Institut Teknologi Bandung(ITB) and the International Textiles Collection at the University of Leeds, they organised a series of workshops at JaF with a group of young people, aged 13 to 17, from local schools.
Our Leeds (UK) based cohort of the same age, Art School for Rebel Girls, are responding to the pictorial languages developed in Indonesia. Together, the two groups will continue creatively exchanging artwork to be developed into a collection of international batik pattern designs. The new West Java collective call themselves Art School for Jatiwangi Rebel.
Designs will feed into a new textiles initiative called Rintik. Led by ITB and JAF Rintik is boosting the local economy through reviving a disused batik workshop, Taruna Batik Jatiwangi Majalengka, in the nearby village of Loji.
Transfer drawings (transforming drawing through human touch) depicting group members’ homes resulted in Bahasa script-like (Indonesian script) abstract images. ‘House’ images were then worked into hand -made ceramic batik wax stamps, each representing an individual member of the group.
These will be fired in JAF’s former tile kiln, ready for the next stage of experimentation– printing with natural dyes sources from Jatisura flora.
Workshops focused on people, community and local culture–developing patterns and pictorial languages representing daily life. A visual census gathered together drawn objects of personal value (mobile phones, cups, clothes, homes, shoes).
Journeys from home to school were mapped through walking and video and then developed into collective artworks. Movement, sound and experimental drawing exercises responded to place and resulted in large scale wall drawings.
Our Leeds (UK) based cohort of the same age, Art School for Rebel Girls, are responding to the pictorial languages developed in Indonesia. Together, the two groups will continue creatively exchanging artwork as part of Crafting Futures programme.