Made in Indonesia: A Tribute to the Country’s Craftspeople
by Warwick Purser
With its giddy variety, competitive prices, and unique motifs and themes, Indonesia is one of the world's great shopping adventures. Any stroll through the streets of the country’s tourist centers and markets will uncover vast quantities of hand-made products, many of them of questionable design and quality, mass-produced souvenirs, repetitive carvings, momentos and dreary bric-a-brac. Unfortunately, most visitors‚ judgments of Indonesia’s handcrafted products are based on this experience.
What is much less known is that Indonesia is home to some of the world’s most talented craftspeople, producing high-quality products that sit on the shelves of the finest shops in the world, including Harrods of London and Marshall Fields in the United States. You'll find here a broad array of fashionable clothing, inexpensive leather goods, exquisite textiles, and stunning jewelry. The emporiums of the land offer everything from primitive artifacts to sophisticated art produced by palace artisans, colorful contemporary decorative furnishings to priceless antiques. Indonesians seem to have an uncanny ability to create almost anything with their hands.
Made in Indonesia: A Tribute to the Country’s Craftspeople by creative entrepreneur and longtime resident Warwick Purser, celebrates the remarkable products manufactured throughout the country and the people who make them. Natural materials such as palm and pandanus fiber, bamboo, shells, as well as recycled materials like newspapers, glass and tin cans are all used in creative ways.
Superb craftsmanship and long traditions are often exemplified in the simplest domestic crafts: the mats, sunhats and bamboo implements of Java; the wonderful basketry of Roti; the flute-making of the Torajans; the delightful bamboo angklung of Sumba. It is interesting to note that many of Indonesia’s traditional handicrafts would have disappeared long ago if it weren't for tradition-loving tourists.
Made in Indonesia features over 200 photos by Rio Helmi illustrating the distinctive and high-quality range of handcrafted accessories from handbags to ceramics and from picture frames to fantastic metal work, as well as Balinese resorts and exquisite homes and their sumptuous contents, this coffee table book serves to inspire the reader on ways to spice up one’s home. It is also a valuable tool for hotel and residential designers and developers to use in their efforts to find new markets for Indonesian products.
Rio Helmi, the book’s photographer, has been capturing images of Asia since 1978. Thinking of himself as "pan-Asian," his richly textured portfolio applauds the region’s people, places and contemporary lifestyles. Now one of Asia’s leading photographers, his work is often seen in books, magazines and documentaries.
Author Warwick Purser founded Out of Asia, one of South East Asia’s largest exporters of hand crafted products, nearly ten years ago. Residing in the village of Tembi on the outskirts of Yogyakarta in central Java, Warwick creates and produces hand-crafted interior accessories for the finest shops in the international market. Often referred to as Indonesia’s Jim Thompson, Warwick in the last decade has managed to do to Indonesia’s local handcrafted products what Jim Thompson did to Thai silk in the 60s.
Building a profitable export business while at the same time bringing great benefit to the local people, Warwick Purser sees his role as forming an important link between the international market and the skill of Indonesia’s craftspeople to whom he has aptly subtitled and dedicated his book. Calling his business and his adopted village “one big happy family,” Purser has created a model for socially responsible investing which many enterprises in Indonesia could do well to emulate.
Made in Indonesia: A Tribute to the Country's Craftspeople by Warwick Purser, Equinox Publishing 2003, ISBN 979 3780 13 4, hardcover, 160 pages, 23.5 x 28 x 2.5 cm (9.25 x 11 x 1 in), index of 23 world-class suppliers with up-to-date contact information.
Available for Rp300,000 at Periplus Bookshops in the Bali Galleria and in the Matahari in Kuta, Warung Made in Seminyak, Ngurah Rai Airport (both international and domestic terminals), in Gramedia Bookstores, and in Ary’s, Ganesha and Periplus bookshops of Ubud. Also sold directly from the Equinox website: www.equinoxpublishing.com.
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