The story
Madang Bilum Festival in Madang
The Madang Bilum Festival celebrates the bilum, the knotted or looped string bag found across Papua New Guinea and made using techniques that vary regionally, with Madang's version of the event showcasing local weavers and bilum styles specific to the province's many communities.
Long before it appeared in gift shops and airport souvenir stalls, the bilum was, and largely remains, a working object in Papua New Guinean daily life: a bag strong enough to carry garden produce, firewood or a sleeping infant, made by hand-looping a single continuous strand of fiber without any loom or frame, a technique passed down almost entirely among women, from mother to daughter, across generations.