WASTRAKARSA

A Collaboration of Meaning and Form

Time erodes things. It does not care about human perception of how fast it moves. Dying, shuffling, or moving side by side with it are options that humans can choose, consciously or unconsciously. Cultural products are one of the aspects of human civilization whose existence is tested by time, both its artifacts and the concept of thinking about something. Time will continue to throw questions, whether it will continue to survive and develop or stop halfway.

In the midst of many cultural products that have been eroded by time, batik still survives until now, and even continues to grow. Batik itself is a technique of decorating cloth that has been passed down from time to time by previous generations. According to Nursaid and Armawi (2016), the word “Batik” is a combination of “ngembat” in Javanese which means throwing and “tik” which is short for dot, so batik can also be interpreted as “throwing dots many times on a piece of cloth”. The variety of batik motifs spread across Indonesia has its own characteristics, including in East Java Province. Banyuwangi with its Gajah Uling motif, Malang with its Teratainya motif, Sidoarjo with its Utah Rice motif. The motifs that develop in each region certainly do not appear instantly. They are the result of long-standing refinements. However, because times are bound to change, modernization is carried out on existing batik motifs. In addition, there are also new motifs created, but they are still adapted to the characteristics of each region.

The 2019 batch of Fine Arts students of the Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, through the exhibition “WASTRAKARSA” wanted to ignite the spirit of novelty in processing the aesthetics of various batik motifs, either creating something new or responding to existing ones. Carrying the theme: East Javanese Traditional Art as the idea for the creation of the work, is a creative step by Karsa – the name of the 2019 Fine Arts students – to collaborate two cultural products, translating East Javanese traditional art into visual language.

PENULIS : ELVIRA PUTRI SYUHRA N. R.