The Wax on Our Fingers

“The Wax on Our Fingers” is a relational visual art project. In this project we celebrate the lives and hands behind batik.

Batik is a craft, regarded as Indonesia’s most prided intangible heritage. Artists Kabul and Mintio collaborated with the batik-makers Kebon Indah in Java. The outcome of this collaboration is a series of self-portraits. These portraits are a combination of photography with symbolic batik motifs. The photographs of the batik-makers are first printed onto fabric with cyanotype printing . The women then respond to their own image by making batik patterns on and around them.

The combination of photography and batik is a result from the art-making journey. For 14 months, Kabul and Mintio developed insights into the daily lives of the batik-makers. These artworks are an exploration into the relationships that the batik-makers uphold. Be it with their families, the village community and their craft. Kabul and Mintio created these works to acknowledge the labor of women in the Indonesian culture.