KECOAK TIMUR, Sidoarjo
Title: Batu Bata yang Bercerita
After we attended the archives workshop, we learned a lot and studied many archives that discussed architecture and building planning during the colonial era. Many archives that appear such as cinemas, hotels, and places of church worship. However, we don’t find archives that intersect with stories that we often find in our society, such as sugar factories, sluice gates, bridges and forts. The story is very attached to the collective memory of the people along with the ironies of the past that still haunts us, like so many workers who were victims in the construction of the building. Therefore, what comes to our mind when discussing archives is the irony of the past, as well as the irony of the fate of colonial buildings that are happening today.
Through the archives we found during the workshop, we tried to create fictional stories through video art installations. Starting from the imagination of the figure of Berlage who has the speed to move to make sketches of architectural buildings and around Indonesia in a short time. From there we saw a process of seeking inspiration for building shapes which then gave rise to various new colonial building forms that we found in archives such as hotels, cinemas, theaters, swimming pools. Through the video performance activation of a cinema building which seems to be reopened and being shown. Creating events to attract the memory of the people around the building to the place through space activation performances.
In this video we will recall past forms of memory about the irony that we encounter in our society regarding the colonial buildings around us such as (sugar factories, sluice gates, bridges and forts). “Bukak Giling” at the sugar cane factory is a people's party that is often found in some areas, as well as the Rijsttafel the diner culture of Dutch people with Indonesians as cooks and waiters. It also displays the irony of buildings that have turned mystical, changes in their function to coffee shops, karaoke venues, villas and nightclubs. The new irony that occurs in colonial-era buildings today can be captured as a form of celebration for the victory of the warriors in the past, who entrusted this nation's independence and prayed for this nation to recover quickly from the wounds of the colonial era.
Yasmin Tri Aryani, Jakarta
Title: Stretching the Archives
Many A.F. Aalbers’ works in Bandung are located in the Northern part of the city, marking the area that once was assigned to the European and wealthy communities, which left the Southern Bandung for the ones considered indigenous and poorer communities. Through Stretching the Archives, today’s interactions and interventions in Aalbers’ works are drawn to add new layers to archival images, forming a tunnel book. As we open the tunnel book, everyday sceneries unfold. It shows how people claim their space around the colonial heritage today, share their stories to stretch the mainstream history, and blur the segregation created by former colonizers in the background.
Rahmadiyah Tria Gayathri (Ama), Palu
Title: How Liem Just Being Liem
For almost a month on the research of getting to know and tracing Liem's works, I seemed to be privileged to know a first generation architect in Indonesia, at the same time Liem's privilege also intimidated me, how could a man of Indonesian nationality in the early 20th century when our ancestors were still struggling with Indonesia's independence from colonialism, Liem could access education and career paths as an architect in the Dutch architectural ecosystem, Liem is like a bourgeois man, although his works to this day are not as popular as other European architects who have lived in Indonesia, but for me Liem's works are special in Indonesia, especially because of his efforts to insert his identity as an Asian architect in the Dutch East Indies period, even though that identity is also faint to read.
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Liem's speciality then prompted me to check one by one his legacy buildings/works that are still intact in Semarang such as: gemeentelijke zwembaden (swimming pool) which is now turned into Ventura Kafe (Culinary Park), Garuda Semarang Cinema which is now turned into, Oei Tiong Ham's largest company office in Asia which has now become an Indonesian trading company, as well as several private houses owned by his clients. Among these buildings, I seem to lose track of Liem's much-vaunted identity as the first generation of Indonesian-Chinese architecture in the archipelago. My ambiguity, which might also be trapped with the ambition of wanting Liem's identity to be read as Chinese-Indonesian, made me expect more from Liem's works, which I imagined clearly gave many symbols about identity (Eastern, Asian, Chinese) or smaller questions like "Where is Liem in his work?".
I tried to collect pieces of symbols, ornaments from building constructions that Liem inserted in his works, symbols that for me are close enough and easy to reach Liem's identity as a Chinese, symbols that I dedicate as my appreciation for his identity that might have needed to be disguised in the past because of his efforts to be the same, or blend in with the needs of modern European architecture.
The alleged insistence, demand or responsibility to sublimate and look the same in order to be accepted in the European architectural circles during the Dutch East Indies for me today can personally be read as the absence of our identity, or myself when looking at Liem's work. The pieces or symbols that slip into some of Liem's works I will construct as a progression to see Liem, in the form of Liem as I hope.
Albert Rahman Putra, Solok
Title: Short Tour For Groy at Sovia Bioscope
Project statement: This project seeks to see the perspective of residents on the design of old buildings, with the dominant European style in Bukittinggi. In this case it is the Savoy Bioscope, which is now known as the Sovia Bioscope. The cinema designed by Groy in 1957, like other bioscopes or cinemas, is a space designed for a viewing experience in one direction and passively, which today is treated differently, for the needs of another cinema sensation, namely the Haunted House. The audience is invited to walk around the spectacle object in one direction. In addition to the flow set by the Haunted House organizers, residents also bring their personal experiences that are attached to the image of the building and the ghosts. In order to accept the attitude of the people in treating this cinema, I asked Groy, the architect, to take a short tour from my perspective.
How do residents see and deal with the space of an old European-style building to accommodate their needs?
Bangkit Mandela + Bardha, Tangerang
Title: Simpang Siur
Encounter colonial archives by mapping its current buildings to see changes or deviation towards original narrative. By hilghlighting the deviation, we hope to see how local community perceive, interpret, or using said buildings according to their agenda.
Skolmus, Kupang
Title: Entry Not Found
When doing a search with the keyword "Kupang" on the Google search engine, we found that one of the recommended questions provided by Google was, "Is Kupang still considered Indonesia?"
Interesting, because, Kupang is not only part of Indonesia but also the capital of East Nusa Tenggara Province.
The difficulty in finding and/or accessing archives related to Kupang in the collections of Dutch and also Indonesian institutions actually illustrates a bigger issue behind it. Based on what was recorded by HNI on its official website, it is stated about their archive collection as follows, “Besides museum drawings, these archives contain sketches, preliminary drawings, correspondence, photographs, models, posters, and collected documentation. The collection offers insight into 130 years of development in Dutch architecture and urban planning.”
The case studies selected for this workshop are the archives of six architects, all six of whom have worked in several regions in Indonesia except Kupang. The works of these architects have been well archived and included in the HNI collection. Although in Kupang, which during the Dutch East Indies colonial period was part of Timor Resident territory, there were several colonial heritage buildings, there is no record of who designed these buildings.
Apart from the romanticism about old buildings in Kupang, the difficulty in finding and/or accessing Kupang-related archives in the collections of Dutch or Indonesian institutions has actually become a problem for the citizens. Archives as a source of knowledge about the history of a city can be an important factor for citizens to know the identity of their own city.
If there are no archives, or archives are difficult to access, how will citizens finally know the identity of their own city? This is especially important for Kupang which is a trading city where people who live in it come from various backgrounds. Differences in background demand a common knowledge about why the residents of this city are here today. Archives can play an important part in shaping the common knowledge and common identity of citizens from various backgrounds. It's a shame, apart from being difficult to access, often there aren't even any archives that talk about Kupang.
This is an issue that deserves to be discussed more seriously because in the end the citizens who live today in Kupang experience a loss of knowledge about the history of this city, and people outside Kupang wonder, "is Kupang part of Indonesia?"
In the last four years, SkolMus has indeed focused on the issue of public archiving. This focus manifests itself in a public archiving program that we call MEREKAM KOTA. Broadly speaking, MEREKAM KOTA was born from one big question, "Why to get archives related to the history of Kupang, we have to look all the way to the Dutch institutions?"
From this question came the initiative to collect archives belonging to families in Kupang related to the history of the city. Until now, we have managed to collect approximately two thousand archives from families and various institutions in Kupang. Ninety percent of the archives that were collected came from families in Kupang. We then refer to these archives as participatory archives. We offer this method as one of the most effective ways to collect archives.
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golCAR, Jakarta
Title: Harmonie of Multisensory
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