This study examines the colonial dynamics of knowledge production about Indonesian textiles in the collecting practices of hippie trail collectors Rudolf Smend and Mary Hunt Kahlenberg. Its focus...Show moreThis study examines the colonial dynamics of knowledge production about Indonesian textiles in the collecting practices of hippie trail collectors Rudolf Smend and Mary Hunt Kahlenberg. Its focus is on the private collections of these individuals, which are documented in multiple catalogues, and their engagement with these objects as textile experts. The study demonstrates the scholarly relevance of the ‘hippie trail collector’ as an analytical category and asserts its implication in the ongoing epistemological, ontological, and territorial colonialism foundational to and perpetuated by the hippie trail. To analyse the case studies, it first establishes the enmeshment of these collectors with the hippie trail network, it then examines their contributions to knowledge production about Indonesian textiles, and lastly it explores their engagement with the epistemological hierarchies regarding these objects. It argues that both Smend and Kahlenberg have aided the incorporation of Indonesian textiles into a Western art system, a venture which has a colonial genealogy but also fits with the countercultural period’s renewed international interest in textile arts. Through said revaluation as well as the co-option and capitalization on Indonesian expertise, these collectors promote the erasure of other meanings and reproduce the colonial underpinnings of knowledge production about these textiles.Show less
