Monday, November 13, 2006

Pictorial Pidan

Jeudi 16 novembre 2006 / Thursday, November 16th, 2006

Vous êtes cordialement invités à la présentation informelle

You are cordially invited to attend the following informal presentation

Pictorial pidan: a group of religious textiles unique to Cambodia

Gillian Green

Honorary Associate, Department of Art History and Theory

University of Sydney

The most spectacular pidan are handwoven silk hangings with pictorial narratives patterned by the hol technique. There are two groups: those that depict scenes relating to Buddhist themes and those that appear to portray a syncretic mix of animist, Buddhist and even Brahmanic themes. Antique examples are very rare now and the tradition of weaving these themes seems to have long passed. This is very unfortunate because the role and cultural context of these particular forms of religious art is still a mystery. This presentation will present the problems and hopes to encourage a dialogue which may shed some light.

Gillian Green has a Master’s degree in Art History from the Australian National University. She wrote the book “Traditional Textiles of Cambodia” which won the RL Shep award for 2004 awarded by the Textile Society of America. She is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney, Australia. Gill Green has been studying and researching the history and cultural and religious contexts of traditional Cambodian textiles for the last 12 years. Her emphasis is on an exploration of the unique qualities of the tradition as it existed in the past and continues to the present in Cambodia as well as situating these in a broader Southeast Asian context.