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International Study on Labour Issues, Unstable Living and Guaranteed Income, Activities Conducted by Graduate Students at Ars Vivendi

Reviving Cambodia: Restoration of Life and Forest through Revival of Textile Traditions

Venue: Nakano Memorial Hall, The Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University
Japanese Page

One of the pictures taken by NAITO Junji

■A Photo Exhibition by NAITO Junji
"Reviving Cambodia: Restoration of 'Life' and 'Forest' through Revival of its Traditional Textile Products"

・Date: January 18, 2011 to January 23, 2011 10:00am - 4:00pm
　(Closed on Monday)
・Venue: Nakano Memorial Hall, The Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University
　Access Map of the Kyoto Museum for World Peace
　http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/mng/er/wp-museum/info/access.html
　Admission: Free. Some textile products made by IKTT members are also exhibited.

■Seminar by NAITO Junji
"Why I take pictures of Japanese people who work for overseas communities"

・Date: January 16, 2011　2:00pm -
・Venue: The Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University
　Admission: Free
　＊Due to the limited space, we might limit the number of admission.

■Seminar by MORIMOTO Kikuo
"Reviving Cambodia: Restoration of Life and Forest through Revival of Textile Traditions"

・Date: Saturday January 22, 2011　2:00pm -
・Venue: The Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University
　Admission: Free
　＊Due to the limited space, we might limit the number of admission.

■Overview of the Project

Seminar by MORIMOTO Kikuo, Director of the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT), Photo Exhibition by NAITO Junji on IKTT and the Traditional Forest, Seminar by NAITO Junji, and Exhibition of IKTT Textiles.

■Organizers

Global COE Program Ars Vivendi: Forms of Human Life and Survival, Research Center for Ars Vivendi at Ritsumeikan University,
International Study on Labour Issues, Unstable Living and Guaranteed Income (Activities Conducted by Graduate Students at Ars Vivendi)
Co-organizer: Institute For Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT), Graduate School of Core Ethics & Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University
Support: IKTT JAPAN (http://ikttjapan.blogspot.com/) (Japanese)

■Project

　This project exhibits photos of the project of "Wisdom from the Forest" of the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT) which were taken by NAITO Junji for about one week. During the period, we also hold the seminar of MORIMOTO Kikuo, Director of IKTT, and the seminar of NAITO Junji, a professional photographer. At the same time, we also exhibit the textile products made by IKTT members.
　Based in Siem Reap in Cambodia, IKTT aims to restore the lives of people and the natural environment to support it through the revival of Cambodia's traditional textile products, which had been almost lost in the longwar. Its activities are not only to revive traditional textile products, but also to provide decent employment for women, especially for people with disabilities. The ongoing project of "Wisdom from the Forest" creates a "village" and a "forest" on waste land through such activities as sericulture, agriculture, revival of forestry, festivals, traditional techniques and living culture, and organization of educational conditions, which are above NPO's activities. Such a trial of community creation with concern to the environment is a rare example in the world, and we believe IKTT's activities show the way of "support" and "Ars Vivendi" toward the future.

■About IKTT

(translated from the website of KITT)
The Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT) was established in 1995 in order to revive and activate Cambodian traditional textile products, which was about to extinct because of the long lasted war in the country. KITT moved its base to Siem Reap in 2000, and has been restoring and activating traditional textile products in order to pass its culture to younger generation. The institute hires paid trainees with priority on poor villagers in farming areas, and has shifted its focus to support the independence of women. It's because they can guarantee their income by reviving textile traditions with traditional technology, experience and knowledge, and as the result, the textile traditions will be continued and passed on to the next generation.

IKTT purchased some wasteland near Siem Reap and has started the project, "Wisdom from the Forest," since 2002. The project aims both to restore the natural environment which provides materials for such traditional textile products as silk worms, mulberry, or natural dye, and to restore the working and living environment of the community. Today, the new village and the forest consist of more than 400 people.

■About MORIMOTO Kikuo

(from the IKTT website)
Morimoto Kikuo was born in Kyoto in 1948. In 1975, after a five-year apprenticeship, he started his career in the Japanese textile technique of painting and dyeing kimono fabric known as yuzen. In 1980 he made his first visit to Bangkok, where he discovered Khmer traditional silk ikat textiles at the National Museum.
In 1983, Morimoto moved to Thailand to serve as a volunteer in refugee camps in Northeast Thailand. He started a hand-weaving project in a village in Roi Et province in 1984. After leave the project, he started to examine natural dyeing practices in the region. In 1988, he opened Bai Mai, a shop in Bangkok selling handspun silk dyed with natural dyes. In 1990, as a collaborating researcher for The Textile Museum (Washington, DC), he compiled a report entitled "Traditional Dyeing Methods in Northeast Thailand". From 1992 to 1995, he taught natural dyeing in the King Mongkut Institute of Technology (Bangkok).
In 1995, Morimoto was asked by UNESCO Cambodia to serve as a consultant for a project on the revival of traditional silk weaving. Following this first exploration of textiles in Cambodia, he researched and submitted a report, "Silk Production and Marketing in Cambodia". He remained in Cambodia, where he started a project to raise silkworms in Takaor village, Kampot province.
In 1996, Morimoto founded IKTT (the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles) in a suburb of Phnom Penh. In 2000, he moved the Institute to Siem Reap, where he set up a workshop for weaving and dyeing with the goal of enabling elder craftspeople to hand on their skills to younger generations. In 2002, he purchased five hectares of land north of Angkor to begin his next project, "Wisdom from the Forest". In 2003, IKTT held an exhibition and seminar, "Hol, The Art of Cambodian Textiles," in collaboration with the Center for Khmer Studies in Siem Reap. In 2004, Morimoto received a Rolex Award for Enterprise. In 2007, he had the honor to be granted a royal audience with King Sihamoni at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.

Morimoto's books published in Japanese
Leave it to the Mekong: From Villages of Northeast Thailand and Cambodia (1998 Daiichi Shorin);
The World of Cambodia’s Ikat Silk: Reviving a Village in the Forest of Angkor (2008 NHK Books).

■About NAITO Junji

(translated from Naito's website)
　Naito Junji was born in Hiroshima in 1959. He has taken pictures of such musicians as HAMADA Shogo, SPITZ, and SANO Motoharu. He has organized "Mashiko - Harvest Festival of Water and Forest" since 1994. He has also taken Japanese people who have worked for overseas communities in Sudan and Cambodia. He has published photographic collection Another Sudan: The Challenge of the Japanese Doctor KAWAHARA Naoyuki and so on.

■Related links

・Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles : IKTT
http://iktt.esprit-libre.org/en/
・IKTT Japan (Japanese)
http://ikttjapan.blogspot.com/ (Japanese)
・MORIMOTO Kikuo: resrrecting a cultural ecology: KYOTO JOURNAL (73)
http://www.kyotojournal.org/kjback/73/Morimoto.html
・JUNJI NAITO PHOTOGRAPHS on IKTT and the Traditional Forest (Japanese)
http://www.junji-naito.com/contents-menu-Daily2008.05.html
・JUNJI NAITO PHOTOGRAPHS (Japanese)
http://www.junji-naito.com/

◇Cambodia (Japanese)

■Pictures of the Photo Exhibition by NAITO Junji

■Pictures of the Seminar by NAITO Junji

■Pictures of the Seminar by MORIMOTO Kikuo

UP:January 26, 2011　　REV:January, 30, 2011

Translation by HIRAGA Midori
Proofread by KATAOKA Minoru
◇International Study on Labour Issues, Unstable Living and Guaranteed Income (Activities Conducted by Graduate Students at Ars Vivendi)　 ◇Events Hosted (or Co-hosted) by Global COE Program Ars Vivendi in 2011

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