- September 26 – October 30, 2026
- Opening reception September 26, 2-5 PM
“Dima bumi dipijak, di sinan langik dijunjuang”
Where the earth is stepped on, there the sky is upheld
A Minangkabau proverb on survival philosophy for Minangkabau migrants
UNIT/PITT is pleased to present Mother Tree: New Roots, a batik exhibition by the Merantau Arts Collective from September 26 – October 30, 2026.
Opening reception will be on September 26 from 2-5 PM, with a Host Nation welcome followed by a conversation between Merantau Arts Collective and Sierra Club BC.
The collective will also be facilitating a series of batik workshops on October 3 & 17, with two sessions available each day—more information below.
Featuring new work by the Merantau Arts Collective, Mother Tree: New Roots converges five emerging Nusantara artists’ practices around batik as a method of contemporary sense-making, communication, and spiritual technology. Through the process of batik-making, a traditional wax-resist dyeing technique whose present form was developed primarily in West Java, the collective explores the tension of practicing and reinterpreting deeply-held cultural and philosophical traditions, without elders or direct lineages to guide them. Foregrounded by the complexities of the diasporic experience on Turtle Island, the collective considers their own relationship to colonialism, imperialism, and the legacy of late-capitalist extractionism while on stolen, unceded, and unsurrendered land.
Focused on the role diasporic settlers can play in supporting Indigenous Nations to protect old growth forests, the Merantau Arts Collective worked closely with Sierra Club BC to develop an approach to batik-making centered around inter-community solidarity, close listening to the natural world, and the spiritual forces that guide these traditions. The works presented here are not a pure reproduction of culture, but an adaptation that allows tradition to survive by growing new roots. Through Mother Tree: New Roots, the Merantau Arts Collective asks how a contemporary investigation into an ancient cultural technology might serve to bridge stories and teachings between the lands here and the lands we call home, without displacing the roots already deeply held.
This exhibition grew out of Sierra Club BC’s Mother Tree Local Leaders Program. Designed in consultation with Tsleil-Waututh Nation, the program supports local community leaders to learn how to care for the lands and waters by learning about Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s priorities as well as through participation in ceremony, workshops on Indigenous Law, land-based learning, and mentorship. Leaders are then supported in creating actionable plans to bring these teachings back to their communities and mobilize their networks.
We’re grateful to the City of Vancouver, Sierra Club BC, and hua Foundation for their generous support of this project.
Events
Accessibility information available at unitpitt.ca/about. Please email info@unitpitt.ca if you have accessibility requirements, or if price is a barrier.
Opening Reception | September 26
- September 26, 2026, 2-5PM
- Free to attend
- 2954 W 4th Ave
Garden-party reception with Host Nation welcome by Audrey Siegl (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), Potong Tumpeng ceremony with Tumpeng from Warung Mamak Nizar, and a conversation between Merantau Arts Collective and Mahalia Reiner from Sierra Club BC.
Documentation by Rea Saxena
Batik Workshops | October 3 & 17
- Dates: Saturday, October 3 & October 17, 2026
- Session #1: 10 AM – 1 PM
- Session #2: 2 – 5 PM
- Cost: Sliding scale $25-45 (PWYC)
- Please email info@unitpitt.ca if price is a barrier.
- Register here!
The Merantau Arts Collective invites you to learn about batik-making as a form of artistic, spiritual, and material investigation. Through hands-on guidance, participants will learn the basics of the dying and mark making process while considering how fabric can be used as a form of storytelling, and how the practice connects to land, culture, and tradition, inseparable from the philosophy that guides the making.
This introductory-level workshop will walk you through the basics of batik-making, and the use of canting, a traditional pen-like tool used to design batik tulis or “handwritten” batik. Participants will dye a small 9″ square with natural indigo and will be guided through the wax removal process.
All tools and materials generously provided by The Batik Library, and participants are welcome to take home their project at the end of the session.
Free admission is available for First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
Please note that there are two slots available per date. Be sure to double check the correct date and time when booking!
Artist Bios
The Merantau Arts Collective is a group of artists with roots in the Nusantara region, or what is now known as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (excluding West Papua), Brunei, Southern Thailand, the Cocos (Keeling) and Christmas Islands, and the Southern Philippines. Coming from diverse cultural and faith traditions, the collective is united by the act of Merantau, both a practice and ritual for many cultures in Nusantara that involves leaving the community and one’s home region to seek knowledge and life experience.
The Merantau Arts Collective is focused on cultural and spiritual revival, shared solidarities, and liberative futures that transcend colonial legacies and borders for Nusantara descendents in Vancouver. We envision a future where Nusantara communities are connected to each other, the land and water, and living in accordance with Indigenous protocol and teachings.
Azlan Nur Saidy
Azlan Nur Saidy (dia) is a Malay-Muslim Batik and ecological artist, Nusantara futurist, and community planner with ancestry rooted in ꦡꦸꦩꦱꦶꦏ꧀/سيڠاڤورا/சிங்கப்பூர் குடியரசு/新加坡共和国/Singapore currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlil̓wətaʔɬ. Through storytelling, ceremony and ritual, Azlan creates spaces for communities to explore shared futures rooted in belonging, justice, and joy.
Azlan’s artistic practice explores the role that sense-making textile technologies such as Batik, as well as ecological ceremonies and rituals such as Puja Pantai and Mandi Bunga can open new possibilities of relating and listening to the land, the more-than-human and each other.
As a community planner, Azlan has worked on a diverse range of projects, including supporting Indigenous communities in conducting engagement for a residential school memorial park, and facilitating capacity-building initiatives for Filipino community organizations. They hold a Master of Community and Regional Planning from the University of British Columbia.
Bernarda Antony
Bernarda Antony (she/her) is a Chinese-Indonesian fashion designer turned fiber artist who draws from her experience in the apparel industry to advocate for more sustainable and culturally rooted practices. Through her work with Indonesian batik, she aims to create meaningful change by honoring her heritage while promoting responsible production methods.
Through The Batik Library, she curates and designs clothing collections using batik fabric, and works closely with batik artisans in Indonesia who specialize in natural dyes.
While advocating for sustainability, Bernarda also shares batik culture through hands-on workshops in the Lower Mainland Vancouver, introducing her communities to traditional batik-making methods. In many of these settings, she finds that participants are encountering batik for the first time. This experience of guiding newcomers into the practice continues to deepen her own understanding and commitment to the craft.
Kira Saragih
Kira Saragih (she/her) is an Indonesian (Sunda-Batak) artist and arts worker based on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC. Her practice revolves around textiles, community-making, and friendship-building, as interconnected forms of artistic and cultural labour.
Through textiles, Kira explores how small, often overlooked elements of the everyday contribute to community-making in underappreciated ways, reflecting on how these subtle details act as indicators of broader ecological, social, or political conditions.
Kira organizes events and programs intended as platforms for gathering, exchange and feedback, creating spaces where friendships can bloom and ideas can cross-polinate. Her practice extends into her work within artist-run centres, where she sees arts administration as a form of labor rooted in care, driven by the belief that how we build structures is as important as what we create. She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University.
Aisha Aiman Nasution
Aisha Aiman Nasution (dia, they/she) is an Indonesian interdisciplinary designer and artist currently based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Their background in visual arts and industrial design has led their practice as a multidisciplinary
creative across varying mediums. With a focus on cultural exploration and sustainability through design, they create through curiosity, alongside community, with care.
They graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design with a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design. Currently, they work as a production assistant and fabricator with a specialty in creating custom builds to bring life and storytelling into a physical space.
Nadia Mahamoor
Nadia Mahamoor (she/her) is a first generation Sri Lankan-Malay multi-disciplinary creator who resides on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She has BDes degree from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, majoring in Industrial Design, and is a certified nail technician and illustrator.
Her research and illustrative work currently focuses on her identity mixed with fantastical imagery and aspects of ancestry and catharsis. In her meantime, she runs her own private nail art studio.
