About

In the Malay language, ‘Tenun’ translates literally to the act of weaving.

The 300-year-old craft of silk weaving originates in Pahang, Her Majesty Queen Azizah of Malaysia’s royal seat and the most expansive state of the Malayan Peninsular. It is here the skill of weaving was first introduced by a Bugis migrant.

This craft of weaving that once flourished was nearly lost to Pahang as the number of weavers dwindled to a handful of just 12 in the late ’90s. It was then that HM Queen Azizah took it upon herself to revive this dying craft. A multi-pronged revival strategy was then set in motion, one that has taken over two decades to bear fruit.

The crux of HM’s strategy is the education and training of silk weaving to inmates of Bentong and Penor prisons, two of the largest male-only prisons in Pahang. The initiative involves the training and education of inmates in the technical expertise of this traditional weaving process.

Not only was this skill introduced to the prisons as a form of manual therapy, it was also intended to offer inmates a skilled livelihood, and one that they could rely on once they served their sentence. HM then founded a company, Cheminahsayang, that would offer employment to professional weavers, as well as released inmates trained in this skill of weaving.

Today, a total of 313 weavers live in Pahang, including skilled prison inmates.

The Royal Pahang Weave exhibition, curated by Judith Clark, runs from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 May. It highlights the prison weaving programme, a display of a traditional floor-loom with a weaver at task, archival fabrics from the Museum of Pahang and a selection of HM Queen Azizah’s own garments and private Tenun collection.