The document summarizes the Textile Tales of Pua Kumbu (TTPK) Exhibition at the University of Malaya. It was a collaboration between Dr. Welyne Jeffrey Jehom from the Gender Studies department and the Centre for Creative Content and Digital Innovation (CCCDI). The exhibition used digital media to communicate the origins, traditions, and cosmology of Pua Kumbu weaving. It aimed to raise awareness of threats to Iban culture and heritage. The exhibition was launched on June 13, 2015 and was praised by the Vice Chancellor and Minister of Tourism and Culture for furthering research and accessing university research.

1.
UM HIR NEWS (18 June 2015)
TEXTILE TALES OF PUA KUMBU EXHIBITION
HIR is delighted to fund this project on Pua Kumbu under the Arts, Social Sciences and
Humanities discipline, headed by Dr. Welyne Jeffrey Jehom, Department of Gender Studies,
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and in collaboration with Prof. Harold Thwaites, Director, The
Centre for Creative Content & Digital Innovation, UM.
The Centre for Creative Content and Digital Innovation(CCCDI) is proud to present a
groundbreaking exhibition to communicate the origins, cosmology and traditions of
Pua Kumbu through polysensory and immersive digital media. The Textile Tales of
Pua Kumbu (TTPK) Exhibition is the culmination of two years of research-­creation
collaboration, between Dr. Welyne Jeffrey Jehom, anthropologist from Gender Studies
and the creative team at CCCDI led by Director, Prof Harold Thwaites. “From my first
meeting with Dr. Welyne in March 2013, I knew we would have a dynamic working
relationship that was sparked from her very first enthusiastic and passionate
description of her “pua kumbu” 'High Impact Research' (HIR) project”.
Literally translated, ‘Pua’ in Iban means blanket and ‘Kumbu’ is to wrap, although it is now rarely used as
a blanket but much more a ritualistic object with spiritual values. The pua kumbu, the hand-­woven warp
ikat textile of the Iban, represents the quintessence of Iban culture. It is, depending on the design, an
historical archive, a mythological or religious story or a personal tale. The textile is used for the entire
range of life rituals, and none would be complete without it. The designs of a pua kumbu define what it is
to be used for and it is given a special individual quality by that particular use. Only a very experienced
weaver can make one of these pua.
According to Dr. Welyne, anthropology is about studying a community through
participation and observation provided the researcher does not influence,
disrupt or intervene in a peoples’ daily life. However, as an academic activist
and applied anthropologist, she is treating participation as action research with
the principle of helping the people she studied, the women weavers, to uplift
their livelihood through their tacit indigenous knowledge and pua kumbu
weaving.
“Basically the exhibition was always planned to be a platform for raising the
awareness of many causes such as deforestation, land grabbing, illegal
logging and encroachment of oil palm into the native’s land in the name of
development. An exhibition that targets people of all ages is the best way to
educate the public or fast track information about this dying textile art and
cultural heritage, that is not known to them”, explained Dr. Welyne in her
launch speech. “The collaboration with CCCDI has been the most successful
because those objectives have been achieved”.
Professor Dato’ Dr. Mohd Amin Jalaludin, Vice Chancellor of University of Malaya, remarked in his
speech that “with the relatively small amount of HIR funding that Dr. Welyne received, she has managed,
with the CCDI collaboration, to create research output that will be highly interesting to the public”. He
hoped in the next round of HIR funding to be able to earmark more support for Arts and Social Science
projects.

2.
YB Dato’ Seri Mohamed Nazri Bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Tourism and Culture, Malaysia officiated the
exhibition launch on June 13 with a gathering of 100 plus enthusiastic guests. He highlighted that
“research on fading cultural heritage, that is often intangible knowledge, is critical to the future of
Malaysia’s tourism industry and to the Malaysian population of diverse ethnic groups throughout the
country, both east and west.” In commenting on the exhibition itself, he pointed out “new media
technologies are important modes of communication to the public as exemplified and showcased here.
Creative approaches to open up access to University research are few and yet increasingly needed
worldwide.” In closing he reiterated the importance of this HIR project at UM.
This exhibition showcases for the first time, via various forms of digital capture
and innovative media communication methods, the intangible culture and
heritage of creating this exceptionally beautiful textile craft of East Malaysia.
Professor Harold Thwaites explained, “this exhibition is a cutting edge
knowledge mobilization from High Impact Research at UM that goes far beyond
just Journal articles”. All too often in University research projects, the
culmination of the work is somewhat traditional, resulting in a number of journal
articles, talks at conferences or academic publications of various kinds, shared
with a special audience only. Here in TTPK the goal is to take the research
beyond the academic sphere and bring it into the public sphere. Public
interactives presented in the form of exhibitions, can serve to mobilize
knowledge much faster than more traditional modes of “publication”. It creates
and presents to the public, a living, digital, cultural imaginary of intangible knowledge, that heretofore
could only be experienced by a very few people.
He went on to clarify that “we have moved on from e-­culture, e-­heritage, and the many other “e’s” into the
Post Digital era. TTPK is an actualization of digital humanities theory and praxis and an exemplar of what
Media Studies is really about in the 21st Century”. Post digital describes the discourse around digital
practice, is concerned more with the human being than with “being” digital and with the fact that digital
technology has become so pervasive that we no longer speak about it, but instead we are experiencing
and grappling with the “impact” of it. The exhibition was launched on the 13th June 2015 at the Universiti
Malaya Art Gallery, Level 5, Chancellery Building and runs until July 17th, 2015.
Links
CCCDI: www.3cdi.um.edu.my
https://www.facebook.com/cccdium
Exhibition:
https://www.facebook.com/ttpk.um
Project:
http://rhgareh.com