BackSPACE/SCAPE :
Reproducing Yogyakarta City Square (Alun-alun) as Social Space
Submitted by KUNCI Cultural Studies Center
Foreground:
ALUN-ALUN is a spatial specificity which can be found almost in every cities and town districts in Java. As the most laid out area in the urban nodes of Java, alun-alun are appropriated as the center of the city in different purposes and functions. Usually "alun-alun" location is delimited by important building blocks representing various elements constituting the public live in Java, such as the city hall (state/ administration complex), local cultural symbol (such as palace or courts) and a house of worship (in Indonesian current context of Islam: mosque), while the eastern side of the area is provided for daily market activities.
In regards to the various activities composing and competing as the praxis of every day life of Alun-Alun, the historical as well as spatial development of this site is surely anything but simple. In the context of Yogyakarta alone, the current spatiality of Alun-alun functions are deeply instilled with collective production of meanings involving state-control, practices of localities (conducted by people living around the site as well as general citizens), reproduction of cultural symbols by the Sultanate power,and last but not least, the commodification tendencies of tourism.
Within this complex cultural framing, the current project is designed as a blueprint for forthcomings that would also cover other Alun-Alun sites located accross Java. On the outset, this project aims at investigating the contemporary sociocultural dynamics that has shaped, and shaped by, Alun-alun spatiality. Apart from its research-based nature, this design will also embrace artistic experimentations as means to explore possible narrativity and performativity related to Alun-alun as a public space that encompasses local, cultural, economic, political aspects of the society. By adhering to arts as methods, results expected from this project would not only engage with the (in)formation of history and space as a knowledge production attempts but also call for creative interpretation and intervention from subject-agencies involved in the process.
Objectives:
To map out and intervene the social practices that implicate and implicated by Alun-alun spatiality.
To explore the narrative and performative dimensions of Alun-alun’s spatial formations
To encourage the investment of alternative methods in spatial knowledge production through arts experimentations.
Project Description:
SPACE/SCAPE (Reproducing Yogyakarta City Square (Alun-Alun) as Social Space), a research based and socially engaged project that combines social research method and artistic experimentation to explore Alun-Alun area of Yogyakarta. Through site visits, participatory observations, dynamic interaction with the local communities and workshop, the artists/artists groups and researchers will critically and creatively intervene the contemporary reproduction of Alun-Alun, public space. The project will culminate in a public exhibition, event and publication that document the entire process.
Project Implementation:
Phase I: Research
The SPACE/SCAPE project is to be intiated by a research involving researchers, architects as well as artists. Artists involved in the project are, among others: soundscape artists, visual artists, writers, video-makers, photographers and theater group. Research activities include:
Textual and visual research on the shifting development of Alun-Alun Yogyakarta forms and functions from the past until recent era.
Ethnographic observation, supported by interviews collected from the life-stories of subject agencies in Alun-alun Yogyakarta.
Phase II: Collaborative Process Based on Research Findings
In this phase, the working team will participate in a few days workshop to present and compare notes and findings. Results from this workshop will be used as guidelines for artists to create artworks.
Phase III: Public presentation
Works by artists and researchers will be presented to public via an event (expectantly held in Alun-alun) that calls for public participation. Aside from plans of publishing a printed version documenting the entire project, updates will also be made available online through in www.kunci.or.id
Time Frame
a. Phase I : 10 March- 10 June 2009
b. Phase II: 11 June- 12 September 2009
c. Phase III: October 2009
Projected Output
CURRENTLY, Alun-alun as a city square has more often been used for commercial and/or official purposes. This does not necessarily mean, however, that it is not accessible for other public use. The annual holding of Sekaten Fair for instance has been a celebrated function of the site which manage to draw flocking attendants each year. Yet, the event’s proclivity as a program designed by Local Government for tourist attractions have posited spatial practices in Alun-alun closer to consumption activities than those of production. Meanwhile, as far as art are involved in the spatial development process of Alun-alun, - particularly in the forms of traditional, popular or contemporary performances, the general outlook are still very much preserved the conventional definition of spectacle, with less and less participation from the public as audiences. Ultimately, the general arts events held within the Alun-alun setting, although free of admissions, presuppose one way of experiencing art, i.e by consuming.
The SPACE/SCAPE project departs from the idea that social and spatial environment are mutually constitutive. Thus the project presentation would include an event, similar to the typical fair ground in the city, but with artworks contents that stimulate public interactivity. The creation of the works displayed and performed in the event are results of research exploration combined with participative collaboration with all stakeholders, most of all with local subjects in and/or of the Alun-alun area. In addition, there would be a publication of book documenting all activities done through the project creation as well as presentation. The minute details of each activity will also be uploaded in our website www.kunci.or.id subheaded within the research and working paper part.
Target Audience
People in and/or of Alun-alun area
Artists communities
Academics/ Researchers from Architecture, Urban Plannning and other Social Sciences
Tourists
Dissemination Method
Printed publication such as posters and flyers
Virtual announcements through emails and other online services
Interim discussions to present and socialize work-in-process reports at KUNCI Cultural Studies Center
Projected Impact
SINCE its first established in 1999, KUNCI Cultural Studies Center has been engaging with interdisciplinary approaches in collaborative projects and discussions in order to exchange ideas, promote critical thinking and initiate network of discourses on key cultural issues. To this aim, the specificities of impact that the project want to achieve are as follows:
Artist come up with research-based, socially-engaged and critical artworks to the sociopolitical and cultural envionment.
Artist and researchers can collaborate ad compare methods in responding the community issue.
For wider communities of artists, lesson-learned and methods of the project can be of use in developing cross-disicplinary practices, not limited to artists circle only but also extend to other elements of the society.
Researchers and audiences could expand the boundaries of knowledge production through arts as an experimentation.
The project realizes how reclaiming processes on public spaces are being conducted by local communities and by doing so will exemplify ways of advocating the people’s rights to the city.