embroidering the
past
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A Luang Prabang artist is breathing life into some almost-forgotten traditions By Sally Pryor
W
hen Somsanith David first learned that UNESCO would be bestowing his hometown with a World Heritage listing, his feelings were mixed. On the one hand, he was overjoyed that the physical fabric of the town would be preserved and cherished for years to come. But on the other, he was worried about the hidden texture of a culture that time had almost forgotten. Traditional architectural styles are one thing, but what about the stories and objects they contain? What about the creative culture that such buildings once nurtured? The second could not exist without the first, and yet only one was being officially protected. The other, Somsanith feared, was swiftly disappearing, with generations leaving barely a trace of a rich material culture that had endured for hundreds of years. As a descendant of an old Luang Prabang family, Somsanith has firsthand knowledge of what the town stands to lose. He grew up in 1960s Luang Prabang surrounded by traditional courtly arts – embroidery, lacquer, painting, puppetry and dance. He watched
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and learned as his mother and grandmother practiced these arts, according to old traditions, using gold threads imported from France to embellish elegant ladies’ sashes, jackets, collars and dowry objects. Although this was traditionally women’s work, Somsanith had an artistic bent even as a boy, and absorbed what he saw from a young age. It was an apprenticeship, of sorts, one he carried with him onto art school in France, at the Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, and even later when he studied psychology at the Sorbonne. After many years away, the traditions of his homeland were firmly in his psyche; in 2002, he came home with great hopes. 2
