Weaving Voices Episode 6
Threads of Life; A Visual Map of Indonesian Island Communities
In this episode of Weaving Voices, Rebecca chats with:
William Ingram, founder of Threads of Life.
Here are some highlights:
Threads of Life
William introduces the episode by explaining his reasoning for founding Threads of Life and discusses some of the issues the organization tackles in relation to the textile industry.
Rebecca and William examine the process behind making indigo dyes.
Growing Indigo
William discusses his journey trying to get more people to specialize in cultivating indigo in an attempt to increase the volume of suppliers.
A Ritual Process
William talks through the concept of traditional textile process as ritual, referencing situations when textiles are produced by a single family intergenerationally.
William highlights the ritualistic and spiritual aspects of traditional textile production.
William introduces the idea of finding patterns and linkages in all parts of our material cultures and using those material objects as a system of encoding for remembering the past and passing down knowledge through generations.
Clinging to Traditions
William acknowledges some of the struggles of a purist culture and clinging to traditions from the distant past, but also maintains his argument that there is little reason to change something that has worked for hundreds of years.
William explains Threads of Life’s method to learn from traditional dye processes, adjust them if necessary, and then showcase those improvements to village dyers if they ask, leaving it up to them if they would like to implement the changes to the process or not.
Sustainable Harvesting
William shares an example of a woman harvesting the roots of a tree to create red dye but doing so without damaging the main roots of the tree.
Tradition Keepers
Williams talks about the film series Threads of Life is working on that is documenting how different Indonesian communities are maintaining traditions.
Rebecca and William conclude the episode by discussing the need for Western society to take the learning seat, observe other cultures and implement some of their traditions to become more responsible and more integrated into the life systems of the planet.
