Women's Wealth: Biruko (Fans)

Women in North and Central Bougainville create striking textiles with bold embroidered motifs that assert the ongoing vibrancy of collective identity and narratives in these locales. The works – Tuhu (capes in North Bougainville) and Biruko (fan shaped textile in Central Bougainville) are representative of some of the most important forms of current artmaking in the region. The creation, exchange and wearing of these textiles are central to local women’s cultural and artistic expression, identifying the wearers gender, status, clan and artistic sophistication. The works’ strong sculptural forms and textured materiality are enhanced with mesmerising embroidered line work, which is animated when worn in ceremony. Also used extensively by women within everyday life, these textiles are testaments to ingenious customary practices that use natural, readily available materials to create works of great aesthetic, cultural and utilitarian value and purpose.

Delicate Biruko fans are carried by women and used in choreographed ceremonial dances in Central Bougainville. Geometric designs embroidered in natural fibre, and more recently in bright wool, along the Biruko’s upper lip enhance its visual impact as it moves through the air. Constructed from the leaves of the black palm, these fine textiles are a symbol of womanhood and can be carried only after a young woman has completed the seclusion that accompanies her first menstruation. Then the Biruko is carried and used extensively as not only a fan but also a knapsack, sleeping mat, lap-lap, container or serving dish for food, baby carrier and shelter from the rain and sun.