The Center for Traditional Arts kicked off a kite-making workshop on June 25, inviting six kite-making masters to demonstrate their art in the one-week event.

The masters were: Yoshizo Sakuraba from Japan; Muhammad Farid Bin Husain from Malaysia; Orlando Ongkingco from the Philippines; I Wayan Sadera from Bali, Indonesia; Kin Kan Hsieh and Amin Balangatu, both from Taiwan.

The six masters not only showed some 20 TNUA teachers and students how to make kites during the workshop, but also created a total of seven large traditional kites – from one to three meters – of their own and presented them to the school as gifts marking its 30th anniversary.

The art of kite-making blends the characteristics of the traditional arts of bamboo craft, paper making, painting, design and musical instrument making with modern creativity to present an eclectic style combining the local with the global.

The making and flying of kites often is intricately linked to local religious rites – through the thin line people pray for good harvests or express thoughts about their lives and environments.  

The workshop saw a fruitful interaction between the masters' traditional arts and craft and the young students' creativity, which gave a new look to the traditional art of kite-making.

As it was a rare event gathering so many masters of the traditional art, many local kite-making enthusiasts also paid visits to the workshop.

The kites made during the workshop will be displayed at the Arts Forum when TNUA holds the opening ceremony for its 30th anniversary celebrations in October, as well as at the TNUA Library in an exhibition running from October 8 to 28.