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Foreword

This book is a tribute to my late mother, Endon Mahmood, founder and chairman of Yayasan Budi Penyayang Malaysia (Penyayang), who passed away in October 2005. She established Penyayang as a charitable foundation helping Malaysians to fulfil their potential, and as patron of the ‘Malaysia Batik—Crafted for the World’ movement initiated by the foundation and its subsidiary Batik Guild Sdn Bhd in 2003, she dedicated herself to what she believed was all at once a precious symbol of our cultural heritage, an indelible craft and traditional art form, and a vital socioeconomic sector to our people.

My mother worked tirelessly to help revitalize the flagging Malaysian batik industry and to promote batik at home and abroad. My father, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia’s fifth prime minister, has since taken her place as patron, and together with our dedicated CEO, Leela Mohd Ali, and the entire team at Penyayang, we continue to strive for the noble work she began and to ensure her legacy.

In 2010, Penyayang celebrated its tenth anniversary and marked a significant milestone of its key cultural project, the ‘Malaysia Batik—Crafted for the World’ movement, the specific aims of which are outlined on page 76. In the intervening years, comprehensive phases were launched, each building on the previous year’s events, from the early phases of ‘Batik Extravaganza’ and ‘Sharing with the Nation’ to the current Phase 6 ‘Innovating the Industry’. Among the wide and exciting range of activities is an annual Batik Week, batik street carnivals, local and international roadshows, batik trade and craft promotions, fashion showcases (some in conjunction with foreign designers), batik bazaars, exhibitions and demonstrations, as well as workshops and seminars for people in the industry.

One of our greatest local successes has been the Piala Seri Endon (Seri Endon Trophy), an annual batik design competition in the areas of fashion, soft furnishing and handicraft, which has unleashed the enormous batik-making ingenuity of students, textile and fashion designers, artists and batik producers. The Galeri Seri Endon, set up in August 2007 to nurture batik talent, markets the products of several Piala Seri Endon prizewinners alongside those of established fashion designers working with batik fabrics. Penyayang also organizes the biennial Kuala Lumpur International Batik (KLIB) Convention and Exhibition, which brings together speakers and practitioners from around the world to share their knowledge and expertise. The World Batik Council sprang out of the 2005 KLIB, along with the Malaysian Batik Association, set up with the aim of putting the hard work of the ‘Malaysia Batik—Crafted for the World’ movement on a formal, long-term footing. The Batik Guild magazine, launched in 2004, serves as a platform for sharing information and engaging stakeholders surrounding Malaysian batik.

I believe that the years we have spent working for and with the batik fraternity, complementing the efforts of the Malaysian Handicraft Development Corporation (Kraftangan) and other government organizations as well as batik associations, have borne fruit. Batik sales have risen exponentially, there is much more optimism among producers, more Malaysians are wearing batik with pride and Malaysian batik has unquestionably stamped its mark internationally.

As innovative as our strategies and as ambitious as our programmes may have been, none of our work would have been possible, however, without the generous support of many sponsors, the judges of our annual batik competition, and everyone else involved in assisting the growth and expanding the profile, locally and globally, of Malaysia’s batik industry. To them and to my team at Penyayang, I give my heartfelt and enduring gratitude.

NORI ABDULLAH

Chairman, Yayasan Budi Penyayang Malaysia

Hand-drawn batik floral motif, Lizza Creations. Carved woodblock, Lembaga Muzium Negeri Terengganu.