“Gotong Royong”
|Printmaking as an art culture in Indonesia is a form of culture that has been carried on since colonial times. Printing technology, which was all used as a mass media technology, was eventually developed into an artistic medium. Along with the development of the era of modern art in Indonesia, printmaking also developed towards applied art until it eventually became a visual communication design. This concept tries to combine the conventional printmaking process with the need for mass information delivery. However, in practice, there are still many artists who choose the conventional printmaking process as a medium for their work to this day.
The printmaking studio at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI) tries to represent the idea of the theme “error” as a work process. This refers to the empirical experience that students go through during the learning process in class. This process does not escape failure, but it also builds the character of each student who experiences the process in the printmaking studio at UPI. The Faculty of Art and Design Education at UPI is located in Bandung City, Indonesia. This university has 6 study programs with an interest in art, one of which is Fine Arts Education, in which there is a printmaking studio.
Involvement in the XIII Biennale Graphic Poznan 2023 is a collaboration between students, professors and alumni in a printmaking studio, most of whom have also become professional artists. The process of creating this work raises the idea of participatory, where every individual involved in it becomes an inseparable part of the ideas and works that appear. The term “Gotong Royong” which means working together. This term comes from the Javanese words gotong which means “to lift” and royong which means “together”.
Everyone is required to have a sense of mutual cooperation, and this is ingrained in all elements and levels of society in Indonesia. Because, by having that awareness, all levels of society will find it easier to carry out all activities in a mutual cooperation way. With this pattern, the work will feel easier because it is done together. This idea becomes the basic foundation of our work to represent the idea of working together to reduce “Error” rates.
GOTONG ROYONG
accompanying exhibition by Faculty of Art and Design of the Indonesia University of Education
International Cooperation within the frames of the XIII Biennale of Graphic Arts “Error”
Gallery Curators’LAB, 12 Nowowiejskiego Str.
Poznan – Poland
Opening: 25.04, 18:00
Duration: 25.04 – 10.05
Artists:
Nala Nandana
Dadang Sulaeman
Sigit Ramadhan
Zaenal Abidin
Zakarias S. Soeteja
Wisesa Weninggalih
This project is “Hi-Grapher” collaboration initiated by Zainal Abidin, Sigit
Ramadhan, Nala Nandana and Wisesa Weninggalih in 2009. The first Artist Proof prints
were exhibited at the Yogyakarta National Museum, Yogyakarta – Indonesia in 2010. In
2022 , Nala Nandana carried out the restoration of the Gotong Royong work together
with Dadang Sulaeman and Zakarias S. Soeteja (as responsible for the graphic studio at
UPI). Restoration works in 2022 will be included in the 13th Graphic Biennale in Poznan,
Poland.