Weaving into Culture by Renee Mariel Ngo https://padlet.com/reneemariel_ngo/tagolwanenweaversreflection a short reflection on the creative Tagolwanen women weavers of Bukidnon (all photos used are by the author) en-us 2019-08-29 13:28:46 UTC 2023-04-09 00:40:23 UTC hello@padlet.com Weaving into the Culture: a lecture-demo on mat weaving with the Tagolwanen Women Weavers Association reneemariel_ngo https://padlet.com/reneemariel_ngo/tagolwanenweaversreflection/wish/378281905    A lack of knowledge on local indigenous art has led many students like me to imagine these works as looking homogenous: geometrical patterns, raw-looking, and made from parts of plants or trees. There’s a very blurry stereotypical representation of indigenous Philippine art in our heads. Because we limit ourselves to seeing this simplified image instead of being trained to see what is special in each and every kind of indigenous art in a multicultural archipelago like the Philippines, we fail to appreciate the intrinsic beauty found in the artworks, and so we also know less about about the fellow Filipinos who make them.
 
   The Tagolwanen Women Weavers Association is changing this reality by assisting women from the Bukidnon-Tagolwanen Tribe to preserve their tradition of weaving and to share their culture and identity to others through their artworks. According to the speaker of University of Asia and the Pacific’s lecture on Tagolwanen Weaving, Gloria Olivares, if it was not for the events that led to the formation of the association, the weavers of the tribe would have stopped weaving (2019). The reason for the decline in the tribe’s weaving traditions is that it results in low financial gains for the woman weavers while needing so much effort and risk to make and sell. It takes 1-3 weeks to weave one mat, women weavers had to walk through muddy or even rainy paths from the mountain to the city where they can sell, lumads are bullied in the city, and buyers would pay only little for the products (Olivares, 2019). In other words, they do not have much practical value anymore for the Tagolwanen women weavers who sell them for a livelihood. The buyers do not see much value in the products either, because of the availability of more modern, easily available versions of the products. In this sense, as a fine art, Tagolwanen weaving is created for beauty, as a unique decoration that reveals the truth about the culture and experiences of the women weavers, but their non-utilitarian value is not appreciated by the people.
 
   When indigenous rights advocate Lorielinda Bella “Amihan” Rago married a Tagolwanen datu, she was gifted a mat made by Tagolwanen women (Tagolwanen Women’s Association, Inc., 2016). She was amazed by it and tried to locate its source, but she found out that woven mats were rarely sold for the past decades due to the the mats’ lack of market value and the high levels of effort it took to make them (Tagolwanen Women’s Association, Inc., 2016). She eventually gathered women weavers of the tribe to find out what they needed to weave again and pass on tradition, and the association was born to help market the indigenous woven artworks while respecting cultural practices that comes with process of weaving (Tagolwanen Women’s Association, Inc., 2016). Now, they participate in art fairs and conferences, appreciated by the art world, and they sell to both local and international markets (Olivares, 2019).
 
   Tagolwanen Weaving is a fine art, not simply because it has become accepted to be displayed in artistic events, but because it tells the story of a culture through beauty, revealing truth about the lives of indigenous people that most Filipinos do not even know much about. According to Olivares, the designs come from the women weavers’ mothers, their imagination, or their dreams (2019). Therefore, the intricate patterns that flow from the process of Tagolwanen Weaving do not only reveal heritage through beauty, but also the inner voices of indigenous women, who are some of the most marginalized people of the Filipino community. Fine arts, as part of humanities, helps us get to know and understand people. If we intellectually and emotionally engage with the pieces of art made by the fantastic women weavers of Bukidnon, we will know a little more about the fragments of culture that make up our nation’s identity, and, therefore, our identity.
 
 Reference List 

Olivares, G. (2019) Tagolwanen Weaving: A Lecture-Demo on Mat Weaving. University of Asia and the Pacific, 28 August.

Tagolwanen Women Weavers Association, Inc. (2016) About Us. Available at: http://www.manilafame.com/webtemplate/tagolwanenweavers/about (Accessed: 29 August 2019).

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