Chettinad Festival | Rapid fire with Peter Lee
Cultural historian Peter Lee discusses his work in curating textiles and artifacts that illustrate historical trade and migration across Asia. He highlights the cultural connections between Peranakan and Indian communities, specifically through shared textile traditions like the Pulicat sarong.
Why it matters
The article explores how historical trade routes and cultural exchange continue to influence modern identity and art preservation in Asia.
Meet Peter Lee, Singaporean collector, curator and cultural historian, and a man fascinated by what happens when cultures travel.
Lee’s collection spans Peranakan treasures, Tamil and Indian textiles, old photographs and objects that tell stories of trade, migration and cultural exchange across Asia. He is the Honorary Founding Curator of NUS Baba House, a beautifully preserved 19 th century Peranakan home in Singapore. His work with the Peranakan Museum has taken him from batik and textiles to the extraordinary ways motifs and ideas travel across Asia.
And now he is in Karaikudi for the Chettinad Festival, where an exhibition presented by the Registry of Sarees features pieces from Peranakan communities drawn from Peter Lee’s archives. Lee is looking at a culture shaped by merchants who travelled the world and brought the world home.
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