Weavers Take Home First Edition of Textile Art Prize
By Emily Cheung
The winners of the first edition of the ANTEPRIMA x CHAT Contemporary Textile Art Prize 2024 (left to right): S. NARTY RAITOM, ROZIAH BINTI JALALID, YEE I-LANN, with ANTEPRIMA creative director IZUMI OGINO and TAKAHASHI MIZUKI, director of the Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile (CHAT), in Hong Kong, 2024. Courtesy CHAT.
On Friday November 29, Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile (CHAT) named contemporary artist Yee I-Lann and weavers Julitah Kulinting and Roziah Binti Jalalid as the winners of the inaugural ANTEPRIMA x CHAT Contemporary Textile Art Prize 2024. They received an award of HKD 300,000 (USD 38,500) for their projects, which the international jury praised for their deep social engagement, groundbreaking complexity, and outstanding techniques through the potentials of textile.
Hailing from Sabah province in Malaysia, Yee I-Lann explores the complex legacies of colonial histories, global connections, and sociopolitical dynamics of Southeast Asia. She finds the regional woven mat, known as the tikar, to be a vessel that represents egalitarian spaces of communion. Julitah Kulinting, from the Dusun-Murut inland communities of Keningau, and Roziah Binti Jalalid from the Bajau sea people of Semporna, work with Yee to create textile works based on the Indigenous principles of restoration and regeneration, as well as co-creating localized methodologies.
A panel of internationally renowned curators assessed the works based on artistic potential, originality, skill, idea, and methodology. Takahashi Mizuki, executive director and chief curator of CHAT, remarked on “the extraordinary synergy between long-term social collaboration, outstanding technical achievements, and innovations in mat weaving,” while Izumi Ogino, creative director of ANTEPRIMA, highlighted the works’ capacity of self-expressing and storytelling through fashion and textile. The artists thanked their many collaborators from their communities and weavers at home in Semporna, Keningau, and Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, upon receiving the prize.
The jury also gave Shao Chun an honorable mention for “her remarkable artistic invention of textile matter and understanding of the agency of materials and their imaginary potential.”
The ANTEPRIMA x CHAT Contemporary Textile Art Prize aims to inspire Asian textile artists to explore practices in response to global concerns while honoring textile techniques and history. Presentations by the shortlisted artists, including new and recently created works by Cian Dayrit, Gözde İlkin, Aluaiy Kaumakan (Wu Yu-Ling), Oh Haji, Rice Brewing Sisters Club, and Shao Chun are on view at CHAT through February 23, 2025. The audience prize, voted on by exhibition-goers, will be announced on March 3, 2025.
Emily Cheung is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.
