1. Melbourne International Arts Festival

October 2001 - Gasworks Theatre
Melbourne Launch

An exhibition of East Timorese Tais weavings was held in the foyer of Gasworks Theatre as part of the cultural exchange between East Timor and the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

East Timorese leader, now President, Xanana Gusmao opened the International Arts Festival with a commissioned poem and the play ‘Duty’ concerning Australian WW2 experience in East Timor were part of this. Mrs. Kirsty Sword Gusmão opened the exhibition on Tuesday, October 9 and Sarah Niner, exhibition curator also spoke. This was followed by a moving performance of a group of young singers from the town of Balibo. The audience included many from the arts community in Melbourne along with many East Timorese who have made Melbourne their home.

The opening included the launch of the Alola Foundation's Weaving Women's Stories Project that aims to collect the courageous and poignant stories of some of the woman weavers with some of their weavings on display and for sale.

2. Old Mornington Court House Gallery

January-February 2002
Mornington, Victoria

The exhibition was hosted by the ‘Mornington Peninsula Friends of Los Palos, East Timor Committee’ and was opened by Councilor Judith Coucard-Grayley, and curator, Sarah Niner.

The hand-woven textiles, hung on their bamboo ladders, warmed the walls of the old Mornington courthouse used to more conservative hues. The Committee dedicated to ‘solidarity with the people of Los Palos to support the rebuilding of a sustainable new nation, Timor Lorosae’, ensured a wide audience of Peninsula residents for the exhibition. Cr. Grayley spoke about her recent visit to Timor and how it had touched her. Federal member Greg Hunt, the Mayor, local councilors, arts and community members celebrated the friendship relationship with their attendance at the opening.

Some of the tais on display and for sale had been delivered that afternoon from Dili and were made by the women of Los Palos, Ofelia Valente, Adelina da Costa Belo and the women of Lore village and Cristina Dias Quintas and women from her village of Foi Massoru. The numerous sales of tais at the exhibition made an immeasurable difference to those communities.

3. East Timor Independence Day May 20, 2002

May 2002 - Post Master Gallery
Melbourne.

This exhibition was hosted as part of the Australian launch of the stamp series designed by Australia Post for Timor Leste’s Independence Day, 20 May 2002. The Tais feature on each of the four stamps launched by Senator Alston. The launch featured a photographic exhibition of poignant shots of East Timor’s recent past, most notably by solidarity stalwart, Ross Bird.

Australia Post were keen to host the Tais exhibition as part of the launch as tais feature heavily in the design of the stamps. The philatelic designers who visited East Timor realised the cultural significance of the tais observing: ”The tais is a natural symbol. The making of the cloth-coloring the tread, hand weaving and teaching the designs - is a long standing form of cultural communication. For East Timor, the tais has always connected the past, present and future. After the country’s first free elections the newly elected leaders sat under a canopy of tais at the new national Council Hall. Each region has its own style of waving, producing distinctive tais patterns, symbols and colors.”

Other showings have included:

• Melbourne, November 2001:Bundoora Homestead Federation Centre for the Arts

• Cairns, QLD, July 2002:Tanks Arts Centre

• Canberra, September 2002, Manning Clarke House

• Bendigo, March 2003, Launch of Friendship Schools Program

• Melbourne, March 2003 East Timor Expo, Darebin Arts & Entertainment Centre

• Melbourne, April 2003, East-West Gallery

• Sydney, May-June 2003, Town Hall Gallery

East Timor ‘Tais’ Fashion Exhibition

Another exhibtion was the Tais’ Fashion Exhibition held as part of Melbourne fashion week in March 2003.

Craft Victoria together with Melbourne Fashion Week held a National Forum titled ‘Between You and Me’ on 18 March. It addressed the role of craft practitioners in mediating between Western and traditional cultures including a segment on East Timor.

Melbourne East Timorese Handicrafts Support (METHS) in conjunction with Craft Victoria and the Alola Foundation in Dili were funded by the Myer Foundation to bring Milenia Verdial, an East Timorese textile and fashion designer to Melbourne to take part in the forum and put on a fashion parade of her own designs.

Melenia Verdial is a young Dili textile and fashion designer who has had no opportunity for professional training. Still she is designing textiles (Tais), designing and preparing women’s clothes with them and presenting them in fashion parades in Dili. A presentation of Milenia’s designs was a way of encouraging exports of the textiles and designs to Australia.

On the evening of the 18th a highly successful Tais” Fashion Parade was held at 45 Downstairs, Flinders Lane featuring Milenia’s fashion designs providing a modern form for Tais Textiles from East Timor, along with other Australian designers. Milenia also presented her show at the East Timor Melbourne Expo, a fundraiser at Collingwood Town Hall and another at the East-West Gallery in Malvern in Melbourne. She also spent time with well-known Sydney designer, Nelson Leong, an expatriot Timorese.

Melenia can be seen with some of her designs at Craft Victoria's Behind The Scenes page - scroll towards the end of the page!