Tracing Patterns Foundation (TPF) is a community of international scholars and textile makers (weavers, dyers, craftspeople, textile designers) who contribute toward building a body of research on both traditional and contemporary textiles around the world. TPF is a collaboration of like-minded people who are passionate about textiles, production processes, weaving and dying techniques, symbols, patterns, cultural meanings, art, and history. TPF also provides an institutional home for researchers seeking to conduct original field research. 

The name Tracing Patterns comes from founder Dr. Sandra Sardjono’s doctoral dissertation titled “Tracing Patterns of Textiles in Ancient Java (8th-15th century)” and reflects the understanding that humans have patterns and ways of doing things that are passed down from generation to generation. The foundation was founded in 2018.

TPF activities:

• Providing access to academic resources for indigenous scholars
• Shaping international collaborative work among scholars and institutions
• Organizing conferences, seminars, training courses, and workshops
• Publishing scholarly textile research with a focus on sharing new and cross-disciplinary approaches
• Publishing textile books with a focus on cultivating new generations of textile enthusiasts and scholars
• Provide support–including funding where appropriate–to early and mid-career indigenous textile scholars and small institutions doing historical research and conservation of textiles
• Documenting indigenous textile traditions subjected to rapid change or at risk of disappearing