Boundaries of Colour. Ikat Textiles of Asia

Close to 150 ikat textiles from five regions of Asia, a weaving loom at the heart of the Indonesian section and a finale on ikat in fashion. The show runs at the Asia and Pacific Museum on ul. Solec from 27 November 2026 to 30 April 2027, with the opening night the day before. The English title is our rendering; so far the museum has published the show in Polish only.

The Asia and Pacific Museum on the exhibition (translated from the Polish original):

Ikat is a fabric whose pattern is created before the threads ever reach the loom. Blurred outlines, intense colours and distinctive patterns make ikats some of the most recognisable textiles of Asia. The exhibition “Boundaries of Colour. Ikat Textiles of Asia” will present close to 150 objects from different regions of the continent, showing both the remarkable technology of their making and the wealth of meanings, functions and traditions connected with them.

Although the cradle of ikat is Indonesia, textiles made in this technique are found in many regions of Asia and the world. The exhibition will show objects from Indonesia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Japan and Central Asia, and its individual sections will let visitors look closely at their regional diversity.

The exhibition will also take visitors behind the scenes of ikat making. Technical details, the production process, and the raw materials and dyes used will be presented through visual materials, field films and archival photographs. In the section devoted to Indonesia the centrepiece will be a weaving loom, and multimedia materials will show the successive stages of making the textiles.

Ikats will be presented not only as the result of a complex technological process but also as works of art that exemplify the artistry of their makers. Their patterns and symbolism are an important carrier of cultural meaning and an element of national and ethnic identity.

The exhibition will close with a section devoted to ikats in fashion and design. It will thus show that traditional textiles have become a source of inspiration for contemporary artists and designers, gaining global reach.

The collections on display come from several museum collections, including coherent collections donated by the private collectors B. Żmuda, J. Gliński and A. Łobacz. The exhibition will thereby underline the importance of donors, and of Polish collectors and researchers, in shaping the collections of the Asia and Pacific Museum.

What to expect

This is a show about one technique, told across a whole continent. Each of the five regions, from Indonesia to Japan and Central Asia, gets its own section, so you can compare how the same method produces completely different patterns. The museum announces close to 150 objects but gives no floor area or number of rooms.

What to look out for, going by the museum’s description:

• A weaving loom in the Indonesian section - the centrepiece of that part, with multimedia showing each stage of making the cloth.
• Field films and archival photographs - raw materials, dyes and the work itself explained on screen, not just on a label.
• The closing section on fashion and design - ikat as a source for contemporary artists and designers.
• Donors’ collections - alongside the museum’s own holdings, groups of textiles donated by the private collectors B. Żmuda, J. Gliński and A. Łobacz. The museum gives only their initials.

The museum has not yet named individual objects or curators and has not announced a catalogue. The standout pieces will be listed here once the museum shows them.

The museum also publishes the funding: to prepare the show it received 184,821 PLN from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage’s Culture Promotion Fund (of a total project value of 245,676 PLN) and 60,455 PLN from the Mazovia regional government.

Context

Ikat is a way of patterning cloth before it is woven. Bundles of yarn are bound tightly at chosen points and dyed, then re-bound and dyed again, once for every colour. The word is Malay and means “to tie” or “to bind”.

Weavers dye the warp, the weft, or both at once. Back in 2023 the museum itself counted that last kind, double ikat, among the most precious, because the weaver has to line up two patterns on the loom. That is where the blurred outlines in the show’s description come from: dyed threads never align perfectly, and collectors prize the softness. Batik works the other way round, with wax applied to finished cloth.

Similar techniques grew up independently in India, Central Asia and Japan, where the technique is called kasuri.

Tickets and time

• Dates: Friday 27 November 2026 to Friday 30 April 2027. Opening night on Thursday 26 November 2026.
• Where: ul. Solec 24 in Powiśle, the riverside district below the city centre. It is about a 12-minute walk (900 m) from Centrum Nauki Kopernik station on metro line M2; the nearest bus stop is Solec.
• Ticket: the exhibition page gives no price. The museum’s price list: 20 PLN regular, 12 PLN reduced, free for children under 7, 30% off for Koleje Mazowieckie regional rail passengers. The museum’s other temporary show running at the same time, “Transformations”, is free, so check this one’s price nearer the opening.
• Free Thursdays: the price list says entry to the exhibitions is free every Thursday.
• Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-18:00 (10 AM - 6 PM), closed on Mondays. Last entry 17:30.
• Closed during the run: 24, 25 and 26 December, 1 and 6 January, and Easter Sunday (28 March 2027). On 31 December and Holy Saturday (27 March 2027) the museum opens 10:00-16:00.
• Tickets at the desk in the museum shop or online.
• How long: the museum does not say. For 150 textiles plus films and a loom, allow an hour to 90 minutes (our estimate); with the permanent exhibition “Journeys to the East”, two to two and a half hours.
• Access: all visitor areas are on the ground floor with step-free entry. The museum shop lends, free of charge, noise-cancelling headphones, an audio guide with audio description of selected objects, easy-to-read texts and a tablet with Polish Sign Language films. The accessibility section of the exhibition page is still empty, so it is not yet known which of these will cover the ikat show.
• Quieter visits: quiet hours every Wednesday 16:00-18:00. On weekdays 10:00-14:00 school groups are in and it gets louder.
• Café: the museum café is closed until further notice.
• English on site: the museum has not said whether labels or the audio guide will be in English, and the exhibition page exists only in Polish so far. Its price list does offer guided tours in English for groups of 10 to 30 people: 150 PLN plus an admission ticket per person, booked in advance.

Who it is for: anyone into textiles, fashion or design, travellers who brought cloth home from Uzbekistan, Indonesia or Japan and want to know how it was made, and anyone curious about craft. If you are after painting or big names, you will not find them here; this is a show about technique and craft. Best time: a Thursday, when entry is free, or a Wednesday after 16:00, when it is quietest.

Events

• 26 November 2026 - opening night; the museum has not yet given the time or the entry terms: exhibition page (Polish)

See also

• The museum’s permanent exhibition - the museum’s page on the Central Asia gallery (Polish) of “Journeys to the East” lists an Uzbek chapan coat made of ikat cloth from around 1900. The Indonesia gallery shows costumes from the archipelago where ikat began.
• Transformations. Old and New Photography from the Collections of the Asia and Pacific Museum - the museum’s other temporary show, until 24 January 2027, free entry: 80 photographs in pairs, old next to new, including changes in traditional crafts.
• Chic and Conventions. Costumes from the Film “The Doll” - Royal Łazienki, until 13 December 2026: 32 film costumes. If the fashion section gets you curious, this is Warsaw’s other current address for cloth and costume; the two overlap only until mid-December.

Museum profile: Andrzej Wawrzyniak Asia and Pacific Museum.