By Yuk Yi Lam

The Festival MatTa air is an event that groups artists and designers from different countries. it’s one of the biggest festival in Java. The idea of the festival is to use art to encourage people and artists join together, also, the main ideas is to get people attention on the environment challenge in Indonesia. At the Festival, they have many kind of different showcase and event,such as shops selling artwork from artists, Indonesia local band show, Indonesia traditional dace show, up cycling workshop, bicycle tour and film watching. Im in the group that to help Sarah to plan and design the event entries, we designed poster and putting some display in the entry. The main idea is to show the message of “saving water, save our world’’, Using visual to convey the ideas to visitor. the artwork from festival Mata air  are all handmade non print and made by up cycling materials.

I think is interesting that they can use any nature material to create artwork rather than using a computer and printer. The art work that I like most is the poster from festival Ma Ta air that create by wood block painting, the beautiful pattern are all done by hand and it takes a lot of time and patient. The woodblock painting is not just a poster, I think it also put some inspiration of Indonesia traditional patterns and it’s a bit like the pattern that I saw on batik. Although, woodblock painting is hard to print in really detailed with colours, but black and white colour works really well in a punk style.

Moreover, we also visit the street art tour in Yogyakarta, It was so amazing to know that people allow artists to draw on there wall, I think it wouldn’t happens in my hometown Hong Kong. Street art would also is an intention is a distinct identity of Yogyakarta and Yogyakarta can one day be celebrated and be famous for street art.

I found an article about street Art: Between art and politics, Wicaksono(2013)mentioned that the government’s lack of interest in taking action toward the problems we have, I decided to form the Street Art Protest movement. Using street art as a tools to speak with government and people is a really good way, rather than just protest on streets.

 

 

Reference:

Wicaksono 2013,’Street art: More than meets the eye’, The Jakarta Post, <http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/07/14/street-art-more-meets-eye.html&gt;.

By Yuk Yi Lam

I interviewed a few people that I met in Indonesia, the first one is a Indonesian student that i met in Salatiga and a farmer in Bumi Langit.

From my interview with Ilham Anggro Sakti, he is a student in Salatika. He mentioned that trash everywhere is a big issue in Salatiga and Indonesia, for example lot of trash are in the river or allover the street and It cause a bad smell. Also, some of the trash could be recycled, such as plastic bag and plastic bottle, but they didn’t. I’ve asked about why don’t every one or government to work on some recycling programs? Anggo told me that If anything cost money, government and people won’t do it. He also claimed that government actually do noting with the environment problems and millions of people in Indonesia suffered. For solution, Anggro thinks it’s hard to solve the problems, but maybe to educate young generation and people will be an effective way. For example, teach them not to throw rubbish everywhere or not to use plastic bag try to bring their own containers and bags. But he thinks that is really hard or impossible to solve the issues without government.

From the interview with Iskandar, he is the owner in Bumi Langit he thinks that nowadays people never identify what they eat, like is the food real organic? it is harm to human body?  the food that people brought from supermarket they never know where it come from, the seller never explain in a clear way. Also, farmer applying chemical pesticides damaged the land and soil. He claimed that in 1970s, when government have the knowledge of using chemical pesticides, government educate the farmer to use it. besides of soil damage and harm to human body, pesticides also make their life become more expensive because every time they wanted to plan something, they have to buy pesticides and the price is getting higher. For solution, he said that we can’t force people to eat organic food or do what they want, the only things that we can do to is try to show them or inspire them.  He mentioned that their local wisdom is ‘You have to learn and do it’, he hopes people not only buying organic food, people should also try and plant by themselves.

From the interviews, I found that there are many issues here that could not be solved and the only solution is to educate people the change their discipline. But I also feel a bit sad after I interview them because what i heard from them is seems like it’s a bit hopeless to solve the issue, like they know there are some problems here, but no one cares and people are not aware with the environment issue.

By Yuk Yi Lam

Agriculture in all over the world has currently faces major environmental challenges. Applications of fertilisers and pesticides in farming and China are among the highest in the world. Overuse of chemical pesticides damaged the soil and land cause a lot of environmental problems, such as soil erosion, soil pollution and harm to human body. Pesticides harm to human and environment, but why many farmers in the world are still using it? Pesticides gave farmer a more convenience way to plan and they can mass produce it. Also, the fact is farmers have not always benefited from adoption of sustainable practice. Not only in China have an issue of low environmental awareness, the solution to improve the environment issues is to educate the young generation and farmers.

In Yogyakarta Indonesia, I visited a real organic farm ‘Bumi Langit’, their main ideas is not using any chemical pesticides. Bumi Langit’s owner jj claimed that they follows a permaculture model which also call permanent agriculture. The science system developed by Bill Mollison in Australia. Encouraging and allowing the communities to live sustainably, while at the same time preserving natural ecosystems, as Joyce(2016) mentioned that “Permaculture is designed to work with nature rather than against it, unlike many modern-day agricultural techniques.” Besides, he also conducting educational programs for local student and universities to demonstrate the issues and teaches them how to minimise the impacts on the Earth by permaculture. Bumi Langit also run as a restaurant everyday from morning till 3:00pm, to let visiter to try their organic products and they bring food in to the organic market in Yogyakarta on every friday. From my visit to Bumi Langit, a farmer told me that they only glow food for what they need and not mass produce. He claimed that people usually produce more than what they need and it’s unsustainable, he give an example like they glow 5 papayas, there family only need 2of it, then they will left 3 on the trees and the bird will come an eat it or leave it till it drops and it will become the compose and seed. The example shows that  Bumi Langit mimics nature’s way of recycling all organic waste is returned back into a functioning system. They also used dry plants such as cucumber to reuse as a shampoo, he said it’s more nature and no chemical in it.

 

It’s another example of using leftover to made a cleanser in Hong Kong, by using fruit leftover to make it and it’s eco friendly and surprisingly easy to make.

 

Bumi Langit is not run by government and they produce what they need, even electricity and food. The second design solution doesn’t cost any money, everyone can do it at home and it’s easy. The important thing is everyone should pay more attention to the issue and take a little bit patient to try to live in a eco ways to help the environment.

 

Reference:

Joyce, T 2010, ‘Permaculture in Java, Indonesia’, Jalan Prawirotaman IV No. 127B, Yogyakarta Organic market, <http://www.gonomad.com/5408-indonesia-thriving-permaculture-in-yogya> .

2014, ‘Green and Thrifty, with Notes of Fruit’, Hong Kong Chinese University,<http://www.iso.cuhk.edu.hk/english/publications/sustainable-campus/article.aspx?articleid=58626&gt;.

Yuk Yi Lam (Kelly)

Under the rapid changes in technology, technology provided designers a more convenient working method and tools, for example in the areas of print design, printers help to mass produce for poster, book and magazine. But what if there is no printer, how to mass produce and photo copy? Though the indonesia program, gave me many ideas on creating a design without relaying on any technological equipment.

Print Design

1 Wood Block

This is an activities of wood block printing workshops, using knife to cut out the patterns that u create and put on inks stamp on the T-shirt. The wood block can reuse for many time, so the use of the wood block is just like the function of a printer.

These are some examples of woodblock art, like poster, tote bag and wood blocks.

It was a really clever technic, people doesn’t have to relay on any equipment, But of course they all need a really professional skill on doing it.

 

2 Batik

Batik is an Indonesian Traditional art, people usually made it to scarf or wear it like dress and cloths. The traditional colour of batik were made from natural ingredients, the oldest colour was blue and they all paint with wax and colour with inks for many times.

For Modern batik, many fashion designers put the world fashion scene into batik design such as Iwan Tirta, the art pieces promote the traditional indonesian art in a fashion modern way. Moreover, most of the batik that got from the market was print batik, people start to mass produce it in the market because need a lot of afford and patient to made a batik the process takes a really long time and this is the reason why handmade batik is expensive and the production is very limited now.

The best think that I like about Batik is every pieces are unique, all paint by hand and thats what makes batik expensive and precious. Also, Batik is the textile of Java and it’s one of the representation art pice of Java Indonesia, just like the aboriginal painting of Australia.

 

 

 

Reference:

‘Batik, the Traditional Fabric of Indonesia’,  Living in Indonesia, viewed 23th March 2016, <http://www.expat.or.id/info/batik.html>.