RRS: The Cloth Remembers: A Batik Workshop with Alaya Ang

Join artist-curator Alaya Ang for an introductory workshop in batik: a wax-resistant dyeing technique, used in regions of Southeast Asia.
About this Event

RRS: The Cloth Remembers: A Batik Workshop with Alaya Ang
5.30 – 7pm Monday 14th September 2026
Reid Principal Seminar Room
Free but ticketed – Book via Eventbrite

Textiles hold deep social, ceremonial and ancestral meanings across many cultures. They mark important moments in our lives, carry stories across generations, and are often treasured as heirlooms. This workshop offers a space to create your own textile piece, a small personal archive as an expression of memory and storytelling.Join artist-curator Alaya Ang for an introductory workshop in batik: a wax-resistant dyeing technique, used in regions of Southeast Asia. Throughout, we’ll reflect on themes within the recent exhibition , curated by Ang. Bringing together the works of artists Erika Tan, Gogularaajan Rajendran, and Elia Nurvista, Afterlives examines the afterlives of colonialism in Southeast Asia. Centring marginalised legacies, this workshop will question how memory can persist through tactile acts of making and consider the future histories such acts may offer.

Participants will learn about batik, and experiment with canting, a traditional pen-like tool to create their batik tulis (hand-drawn batik), developing individual motifs to inscribe personal and collective narratives onto cloth.

Alaya Ang is an artist-curator originally from Singapore, now based in Glasgow. Rooted in community-led and collective modes of working, Alaya’s practice engages with Southeast Asian histories to explore the intersections of home, migration, and ancestral improvisation.

This event is part of the Race, Rights & Sovereignty ‘States of Matter’ strand. ‘States of Matter’ is a programme strand which considers interactions between art and statehood, asking how practitioners shift our present states of living. Race, Rights and Sovereignty is a programme supported by the GSA Students Association in partnership with GSA Exhibitions.

Image: © Alaya Ang