Poverty Quilt / A Year in Java. Image courtesy of Jimmy Ong

For his Poverty Quilt/A Year in Java, Jimmy Ong collaborated with a group of nyai penjahit (“artist-seamstresses” in Javanese) to create a large quiltwork pieced together from textile scraps collected from sewing sweatshops in Yogyakarta. The work is an ode to Ong’s reflections on poverty and the impact of colonial rule on Java, as well as a tribute to his late grandmother. She became the sole breadwinner and raised seven children on earnings made by sewing buttonholes for a factory when his grandfather was stranded on Java in 1948.

While the work is on display at ACM, members of the public are invited to participate by sewing buttons onto the large quilt as a representation of inscribing their own individual memorials against the nation’s colonial history.

Venue: Shaw Foyer, Asian Civilisations Museum

When: 20 Sep - 17 Oct 2019,

By: Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM)