The Soul of Silk: A JourneyIKTT – Innovation of Khmer Traditional Textiles organization in CambodiaREPORT by Klaus Rink, AT – etn-net.org

REPORT by ETN member

Kikuo Morimoto first came into contact with the Khmer ikat silk at the National Museum in Bangkok more than 30 years ago. As a volunteer in the refugee camps in Thailand, he very soon showed a keen interest in the weaving work of the Cambodian refugees living there and got intensively involved with ikat weaving technology and hand-spun silk. UNESCO Cambodia commissioned him to research the state of traditional silk weaving in Cambodia after the war. For months, he traveled throughout the war-torn country and remained in Cambodia in an effort to rebuild the almost lost weaving tradition. In 1996 he founded IKTT.

The heart of IKTT today is the weaving village “Wisdom from the Forest“. This place, located on 23 ha of land, 30 km north of Siem Reap, is more than a weaving village. It is a place of new beginning. Twenty years ago, during Morimoto’s travels through Cambodia, he had sought and found women who had preserved their knowledge and skills beyond the regime of the Khmer Rouge and the Civil War. He found them all over Cambodia, in Kampot Province in the south, Takeo Province near Phnom Penh and also in the north of the country. They, the Silk Grandmothers, as he likes to call them, are the ones who, with their experience, pass on the technology as well as a feeling of pride for this long tradition to the next generation. Without them, all this would not happen. From mother to daughter to granddaughter and only from memory do they pass on their knowledge.

More than 400 weavers have been trained by the Institute since then. The protective hand, the soul-giving power is Kikuo Morimoto. He pays his weavers good pay and takes care that their children can go to school. He also employs the husbands of the weavers and has an open ear for all concerns of the residents.

Here at the village the plants are reforested, which are needed for dyeing as well as for raising the silkworms, whose golden yellow cocoons later form the source material for the silk production. The villagers are continuing to weave beautiful textiles in Khmer tradition, from the most beautiful silk in the world, and are enriching it with new patterns and colors by the next generation of young weavers.

“The Soul of Silk: A Journey” is my personal view on Cambodia, on traditional Khmer silk and the story of Kikuo Morimoto. I first got to know Kikuo Morimoto in the summer of 2013 on my first trip to Cambodia. A little note in my guidebook about silk and weaving tipped me off to visit IKTT. I had visited weaving mills in Thailand, Myanmar and Laos and read about ikat, but my visit to Kikuo Morimoto and the weaving village “Project Wisdom from the Forest” far surpassed my expectations. Since then I visited IKTT several times, last time in 2019.

Kikuo Morimoto passed away on July 3, 2017 after a long illness. The members of IKTT continue Morimoto’s life’s work.

Kikuo Morimoto’s guiding principle was always this: „Tradition is not something to be preserved. Tradition is something that has to be created.“

Part of the text is taken from a book review for “IKTT – The Tree of Life” by Emilee Koss & Klaus Rink.

Read the detailed report by Klaus Rink in the PDF: