Burmese Karen New Year, 2009
Date2009
Mediumborn digital photography
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
DescriptionPhotographs of the Burmese Karen New Year celebration at St. Joseph Cathedral hall in 2009. People are shown on stage in (.11-.12).
Object number2015.196.441.9-.12
CopyrightIn Copyright
NotesSubject Note: The Karen are a group of tribal people living in the hills of northern Burma and northern Thailand. Forced out of Burma by repressive military governments since 1975, Karen refugees relocated to camps in Thailand. Over 200 Karen have settled in Hartford in recent years, bringing with them excellent musical and textile skills. Many Karen can weave their own cloth, making traditional shirts, sarongs, and shoulder bags. Although the preferred materials for looms and cloth can be difficult to find, family members build looms for the weavers using PVC pipes instead of bamboo. Mu Wah learned all the techniques of weaving from her mother starting at the age of ten. She and weaver Hser Nay Paw came to Hartford in 2007, joining the Sewing Circle Project as a way to continue their cultural heritage. Myint Khin arrived in Connecticut in early September 2013, to reunite with her family. She learned to weave from teachers in the Thailand camp, and has now taught her four daughters.Karen women and men weave their fine cotton cloth on backstrap looms that can be rolled up and transported from place to place. First the threads are stretched out in a continuous loop around an upright frame with wooden or bamboo posts that hold the yarn tight. Then this set of threads still on the posts is lifted off the frame and turned horizontally to form the warp that is now stretched out as the basis of the cloth. The weaver ties one of the posts to a stationary object such as a tree, with the other post in front of her and tied at either end to a strap around her back. Leaning back to create tension on the warp threads, she can weave back and forth between the threads to create cloth. Intricate patterns with dyed threads are woven into the base cloth, and weavers will sometimes embellish the cloth with embroidery and beads made of seeds. Specific patterns can tell stories or reflect inspirations and knowledge from nature, in a kind of visual narrative. Different colors and stripe patterns can denote marital status or occupations of the person wearing the cloth.
Hartford is now home to several Karen weavers – Hser Nay Paw, Mu Wah, Nu Wah, Pwe Say Paw, and Myint Khin are some of the Burmese Karen weavers who use traditional backstrap looms to make the clothing worn by all members of their large community in Hartford. Their woven cloth, bags, shirts, and scarves have been exhibited by CCHAP in several exhibits including Weaving a New Life: The Refugee Artists Sewing Circle at the Clare Gallery in Hartford in 2009, and in the 2013-2015 traveling exhibit New Lives New England, displayed at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury VT, and the Institute for Community Research in Hartford. Myint Khin and Mu Wah traveled with CCHAP to demonstrate weaving at the Vermont Folklife Center in December 2013.
Mu Wah learned all the techniques of weaving from her mother starting at the age of ten. She and weaver Hser Nay Paw came to Hartford in 2007, joining the Sewing Circle Project as a way to continue their cultural traditions. Myint Khin is a Burmese Karen master weaver who arrived in early September 2013 to live with family members already settled in Hartford. She learned to weave from teachers in the Thailand refugee camp, and has now taught her daughters. She has presented programs in Greater Hartford schools, with students from Miss Porters School, and at Trinity College to show students her back strap weaving and the clothes she makes. Myint was a popular weaver in the refugee camp in Thailand where her four daughters were born, three of them are also weavers. Myint is in demand as a weaver and seamstress for the Burmese Karen community in Connecticut and New England.
Additional audio, video, and photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these communities and artists.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
On View
Not on view
Fatima Vejzovic
2009 January-February
