Tikar/Meja 59
Yee I-Lann, Malaysian, born 1971
2018-2019
Bajau Sama DiLaut Pandanus weaving with commercial chemical dye and sealant
Overall: 33 7/16 × 43 11/16 in. (85 × 111 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Mrs. Harvey P. Hood W'18 Fund and with a gift from Kaavya Viswanathan and Joshua Lewin, Class of 2011
2024.18.2
Geography
Place Made: Malaysia, Southeast Asia, Asia
Period
21st century
Object Name
Mat
Research Area
Asia
Decorative Arts
Not on view
Label
In this colorful mat, a four-legged table is skillfully woven into the center. Through a collaboration with localweavers from an inland community in Malaysia, Yee highlights the community’s profound connection to traditional techniques while also suggesting an act of postcolonial resistance. A colonial legacy in Southeast Asia, the table imposed a hierarchical seating practice that differed from the egalitarian practice of the floorbased mat. By “capturing” a table within the mat, Yee reverses the power relationship between the two symbolically freighted objects while reminding us of the persistence of this colonial legacy today.
From the 2025 exhibition Weaving as Method: Intertwining Postcolonial Narratives in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, curated by Haely Chang, Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art
Published References
Yee I-Lann and Lucy Davis, “Tikar as Verb: A Conversation between Yee I-Lann and Lucy Davis on Collective Ecologies and the Politics of the Mat” in Yee I-Lann: At the Table, ed. Beverly Young (Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt, 2023), 44-59. Yee I-Lann and Lucy Davis, “Tikar as Verb: A Conversation between Yee I-Lann and Lucy Davis on Collective Ecologies and the Politics of the Mat” in Yee I-Lann: The Sun will Rise in the East, ed. Beverly Young (Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt, 2023), 44-59. Yee I-Lann: The Sun will Rise in the East, ed. Beverly Young (Kuala Lumpur: RogueArt, 2023), 172-187.
Provenance
The artist, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; Silverlens Galleries, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2024.
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