Tais, Culture & Resilience: woven stories from Timor Leste – Exhibition Opening

Join us for the grand opening at 6.30 – 8.30pm on Thursday 19 September at Trinity College.

Refreshments will be served in the Bernado Family Atrium. RSVP essential, click here to register.

Exhibition opening hours
Professor Sir Joseph Burke Gallery

24 September to 10 December 2024
Tuesdays & Thursdays: 10am–4pm

Level 1, Gateway Building, Trinity College (Enter via Tin Alley)
100 Royal Parade
Parkville 3052

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Timor-Leste’s vote for independence and the start of the Australian-led UN peace-keeping mission known as InterFET that would be deployed to the country in the wake of widespread destruction and violence by the departing military following the referendum’s outcome.

In 2003, within a year of Timor-Leste gaining formal independence, a women’s art cooperative called LO’UD was founded by female resistance fighters. The following year, LO’UD would partner with the Australian volunteer organisation East Timor Women Australia (ETWA), which also this year celebrates their 20 years of cooperation with LO’UD.

Drawing upon traditional weaving rich in stories, and photography taken on the ground in Timor-Leste over the past fifty years, Tais, Culture & Resilience: Woven Stories of Timor-Leste shares an important part of the story of Timor-Leste’s struggles and their drive to maintain culture in the face of adversity.

LO’UD weavers from the country’s far-eastern municipality of Lautem still work to preserve culture and alleviate poverty by marketing naturally dyed, hand-woven textiles known as tais. Through the use of specific designs and patterns, tais are an expression of Timor-Leste’s diverse cultural identity and this important tradition has endured despite successive occupations.

Trinity College is excited to partner with ETWA to bring together rich stories, in Tais, Culture & Resilience: Woven Stories of Timor-Leste.

Symposium – Saturday 21 September
Augmenting the exhibition will be a half-day symposium on Saturday, 21 September, with keynote speaker Professor Craig Stockings from the University of NSW, Official InterFET historian.

Stockings is the author of Born of Fire and Ash, the inaugural volume of the official history of Australian operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor, providing an honest, challenging and compelling account of the 1999–2000 East Timor crisis and Australia’s response to it.

Accompanied by a line-up of scholars and expert presenters from the Australian War Memorial, ETWA, and the Timor-Leste community themselves, this symposium is an event not to be missed!

Click here to register and for further details.