Spirit of the Loom: the Conservation and Commodification of Surin’s Textile Cultural Heritage

Surin textiles have a long history, and because of thegeographical location of Surin, the designs were inspired bycontact with Khmer culture. The patterns and techniquesare therefore unique. The textiles were chosen to makeshirts and shawls for the leaders and their wives at APEC2003. Since then, the textiles have become increasingly wellknown.Tourism to the area has created jobs, particularly intextile production – feeding the silkworms, tie-dying,weaving and making up garments. Local knowledge aboutthe process has been transmitted orally. The textiles havethus become cultural commodities, and their production is aform of intangible heritage which is now being safeguarded.