A few years ago, I was preparing for my exhibition.
I used to have great support from the Belgian Embassy in Tokyo for my solo and group exhibitions in Japan, I thought it would be a great idea to contact the Belgian Embassy in Singapore, but I knew no one there.
One of our daughter's class mates was Belgian and I called the parent to ask if they knew someone in the embassy here.
The parent asked me "Is tapestry the dying art?" This is the first reaction I got from the parent.
"Strata I"* on the loom
There are 1,000 tapestry weavers** in the world.
The number 1,000 is a same as Mountain Gorillas according the Red List of WWF.
I know it sounds odd if I compare the number of tapestry weavers to the numbers of endangered species on earth😆
Having said that, I think it could be helpful to understand how rare we are and how big (or small) is our community.
However, the world can be looked at differently depending on where you stand and how to look at it.
So I would say, the art of tapestry is not dying. There are as many as 1,000 tapestry weavers exist in the world!
*Strata is my diptych tapestries based on the history of Singapore Treasure "Singapore Stone".
Strata I&II
60cmx50cm (each)
wool, cotton, linen paper
**There were some errors in numbers, tweaked and updated on 12/07/21
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