‘The Heart of Every Mountain is Ocean’: Turning Kalinga Textile into Art

The Heart of Every Mountain is Ocean organizes an artistic avenue for woven Kalinga textile art by Irene Bawer-Bimuyag. This exhibit at Mono8 Gallery, showing until October 5, features a collection of textiles, curated by Emerging Islands, that plays with the idea of oceans and mountains. 

Bawer-Bimuyag grew up in the community of Lubuagan, Kalinga. From there, she has used the weaving techniques passed down to her as a way of adapting the flow of water into a different medium. Her works play with traditions of weaving in that specific community—and emerges with artwork that harkens towards the artist’s obsession with the ocean. 

“For the Kalinga, their sense of place is shaped by the flow of water,” Nicola Sebastian said in their write-up. “[It’s] unceasing chatter can be heard from the forest and the field to the village, even inside people’s homes. In their collective imagination, the entire cosmos is a watershed, bordered above by a chaya beyond their highest mountain spring, and below by a lagud vaster than any earthly lake.”

Creativity in Fabric Works

The details in the works are extraordinary to behold. Bawer-Bimuyag puts different symbols in every work, from squids to flowers to crops. It layers the artworks so that they build on one another, crafting a wave-like progression that ties it all together. 

Much of the works look tactile, with the woven details popping out from the base fabric below. The artist utilizes colorful pastel colors that allow different portions to stand out. From the bright oranges and yellows of the crops to the washed-out blue of the water, it feels grounded in artistry.

In their write-up, Sebastian talked about how the artworks explore the history of migration and tradition of the Kalinga. While they may reside in the Cordillera mountains, their ancestors crossed the sea to find that new home. With that, Bawer-Bimuyag finds the flow that exists between the two environments. 

“[Even] beyond language, the mountains remember the ocean that holds them, still,” Sebastian wrote. “Every time the sun begins to rise, a sea of clouds flows through their valleys, and vanishes into thin air before noon.” 

Overall, it gives viewers this progressive mash-up of land and sea elements. The works show how these different environments tend to meld together across the board. It showcases how integrated these elements truly are—the separation of the land and sea is more permeable than we believe. 

Redefining Kalinga Textile for the Modern Age

One of the most interesting things about this exhibition is how Bawer-Bimuyag utilizes and at the same time redefines fabric textiles from an indigenous perspective. There’s a lot of heart in the works, sweeping visitors with the almost-rhythmic repetition of colors and figures. 

It makes the case of seeing these objects as art: something studied and appreciated for its beauty, not just its function. It has a place beyond one’s home: it belongs in museums and galleries, its pageantry and style shown to others.

“All too often, contemporary Indigenous creativity is labeled as ‘craft’ rather than ‘art,’” Sebastian wrote. “[It’s] fit for a trade fair, yet ‘out-of-place’ in a contemporary art gallery. In transforming the knowledge of her ancestors through her artistic response to the present, Bawer-Bimuyag asserts that, for culture to be alive, it must be reborn, again and again.”

The Heart of Every Mountain is Ocean shows the living artistry in indigenous stories and artworks. At times, the way we discuss indigenous art exoticizes it and relegates it as a curiosity. But Irene Bawer-Bimuyag reminds us that these cultures still exist today, and that they can adapt to the times as well as every other culture has. Tradition need not mean artistic stagnation.

Photos by Elle Yap.

Related reading: Filipino Textiles: Magical Weaves of the Mindanao and Sulu People

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