Auspicious Designs: Batik for Peranakan Altars
Colourful and imaginative, batik altar cloths blend traditions and influences, showing how Peranakans adapted and improvised. Called tok wi, altar cloths decorate the fronts of Peranakan altars during important ceremonies, and reflect the strong ritual elements of Chinese Peranakan life in Southeast Asia.
This exhibition focuses on a group of batik altar cloths generously donated to the Peranakan Museum by Matthew and Alice Yapp. Families traditionally used embroidered cloths made in southern China, but in the early 20th century, some began using cloths made of local batik. Produced on the north coast of Java, the batik altar cloths in this exhibition feature traditional Chinese symbols as well as designs from Europe and Southeast Asia. A catalogue of the museum's collection accompanies the exhibition.
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Special Exhibition
Batik Nyonyas: Three Generations of Art and Entrepreneurship
11 Oct 2024 – 31 Aug 2025
Family, art, and entrepreneurship converge in the story of three visionary Peranakan women from Indonesia – Nyonya Oeij Soen King, her daughter-in-law Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing, and her granddaughter Jane Hendromartono. From the 1890s to 1980s, they produced impressive batiks in the renowned batik centre of Pekalongan on Java’s north coast. This exhibition explores the lives and works of these women, revealing how each became a batik master in her own right, and how they responded to the rapid political, cultural, and economic changes of their times to run a business that produced great art.
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Programmes
Daily Guided Tours at Peranakan Museum
Daily
Guided tours led by our volunteer docents are available daily.
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Lectures and Seminars
Entrepreneurship and the batik industry in Pekalongan
27 November 2024, 7 to 8pm
This talk examines the development of Pekalongan’s batik industry in the context of Indonesia’s quest for independence, as well as shifting market forces within the nation and beyond.
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