HAMPARAN KERAMAT (SACRED LANDSCAPE)

By a fascinating turn of affairs live.make.share (aka. myself Elise Luong) was invited by the research group Badan Kajian Pertanahan (BKP) to participate in the Hamparan Keramat (Sacred Landscape) residency program, organised by the crazy folk at Jatiwangi Art Factory as part of the 5th Indonesia Contemporary Ceramics Biennale

The residency program focused on studies and works surrounding land issues specific to the Jatiwangi - Majalengka region. It emphasized studying the cultural landscape of the area, a region known for its traditional roof tile industry that is set to develop towards larger scale industry takeover.

In response to the residency proposition I invited Francesco Montresor, architect and urban-thinker to contribute thoughts and time to the BKP's grand masterplan of the Terracotta City, we went, we listened, we drank coffee and held parties, we asked questions and shared thoughts. It was mostly confusing, highly amusing and utterly delightful.

What do we imagine when hearing to the word sacred/keramat? especially when the word is attached to the area we live in, in Jatiwangi. The word Sacred/Keramat is originally from Arabic ‘Karomah’, which means respect / glorification, is used as a way to thinking the area that become the location of artistic experimentation on the Jatiwangi cultural landscape. An area that is growing into an industrial city, becoming urban, becomes crowded, but at the same time it is the sacred Jatiwangi.

Hamparan Keramat invites 2 Southeast Asian artists and 2 Indonesian artists who will carry out artistic research on land development and cultural issues and collaborate with formal goverment institusions and non-formal institutions in the Jatiwangi region. To be able to activate each other and open to various kinds of collaboration is a method of engaging in regional development.