Monthly Archives: March 2013

DesignAction.bdg Pre-Events 1 and 2

Time flies, when you’re having fun. Like what we’re having now – approaching DesignAction.bdg – when we realize that the first pre-event has just passed and the second one suddenly appears at the corner!

The first pre-event was an Expert Opinion Polling, where Riset Indie (an independent research community) teamed up with HMP ITB (Planning Department students society at ITB) in gathering expert opinions concerning the issues of urban mobility in Bandung and processing the input using Delphi Method to come out with conclusions. The event took about four hours in one Saturday morning (April 23), seemingly short, but went quite lively and yielded interesting results.

How it looks from the back of the room during the EOP session

What was so exciting about this first pre-event is how we managed to gather so many experts in a room for a focused purpose, eminent stakeholders from different backgrounds (academics, government, communities, etc.) – something that usually occur in a different setting, hosted by a formal institution, instead of an independent community. We are quite honored to have such trust in conducting this session. Another exciting thing is that we actually confirmed a number of assumptions concerning the issues of urban mobility, and that we can use the data from this event to move on to our next plans. Riset Indie is currently arranging the data to be accessible online, in a friendly format (i.e. infographics), with the hope that any audience can contribute to the issues, or even to offer realistic solutions. Congrats and salute to Riset Indie and HMP ITB! Have fun preparing another pre-event, Angkot Day, with all its sub-events!

The second pre-event takes place next weekend, April 5-6: an internal workshop on Design Thinking, facilitated by Amelia Hendra, whose years of experience from working as a designer at IDEO Shanghai would add to our insights on design thinking method. The workshop is limited to 30 people with various backgrounds (educators, designers, engineers, academics, artists, social workers, etc.), all of whom belong to the organizing team for DesignAction.bdg. It is important for us to have this workshop, since the event we’re preparing is about Design Thinking, while all of us (except Adi Panuntun, who will assist Amelia in the workshop), have next to zero experience concerning Design Thinking methods. (Although we might have practiced parts of the methods, but with no structured phases and evaluation.) The workshop will bring up the theme urban mobility. At the end of the workshop, we hope to understand more about Design Thinking as a method to exercise our creativity in order to gain innovative, doable solutions for challenges around urban mobility in Bandung. We are really looking forward to having this workshop!

Bring it on! 🙂

Links to media about EOP:

BandungNewsPhoto: BCCF Bakal Gelar Polling Memecahkan Masalah Kemacetan di Kota Bandung

AntaraNews.com: Komunitas Kreatif Petakan Masalah Kemacetan Kota Bandung

Aktual.co: Komunitas Kreatif Petakan Masalah Kemacetan Bandung

About DesignAction.bdg:

DesignAction.bdg, coming soon!

Design Thinking? Design Action!

Tote in Collaboration

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BAGOES TOTE IN COLLABORATION

TITA LARASATI | RIDWAN KAMIL | DENDY DARMAN | REKTI – THE S.I.G.I.T | ARKIV

Apa kesamaan dari seorang arsitek, musisi, graphic artist, toy designer dan comic artist? Mereka sama-sama mencintai bumi dan melakukan kolaborasi untuk kelestarian lingkungannya.

baGoes, merek tas lipat (foldable bag) karya Greeneration Indonesia, berkolaborasi dengan lima artis inspiratif Bandung untuk membuat lima desain Tote bag. Lima artis tersebut adalah Ridwan Kamil (arsitek), Tita Larasati (comic artist), Rekti The S.I.G.I.T (musisi), Arkiv (artist/ toy designer), dan Dendy Darman (graphic artist).

Tujuan dari kolaborasi ini adalah untuk mendukung Kampanye Diet Kantong Plastik (www.dietkantongplastik.info) yang mengajak masyarakat bijak dalam menggunakan kantong plastik. Gerakan pengurangan penggunaan kantong plastik saat ini sedang menjadi trend yang dilakukan oleh berbagai pihak mulai dari komunitas, retailer, hingga pemerintah.

baGoes sebagai salah satu tools untuk berdiet kantong plastik juga ingin turut serta mendukung kampanye petisi #PayforPlastic di www.change.org/id. Ditargetkan 500.000 orang menandatangani petisi ini hingga 22 April 2013.

Tote bag telah mengalami perkembangan dari semula berfungsi untuk kepraktisan, menjadi salah satu item paling digemari di industri fashion. Jitesh Patel dalam bukunya The Tote Bag (2011), menyatakan bahwa,

“Tote bag adalah sebuah eco produk di abad ini yang ditujukan untuk menggantikan kantong plastik sekali pakai”.

Kolaborasi untuk produk Tote bag ini merupakan usaha baGoes untuk mengembalikan fungsi Tote bag ke akarnya sebagai alternatif kantong plastik, bersamaan dengan fungsinya kini yang juga sebagai fashion item. 35% dari total penjualan yang merupakan hak para artis, akan didonasikan untuk Kampanye Diet Kantong Plastik.

“Saya tertarik berkolaborasi karena menyelamatkan lingkungan itu butuh cara-cara kreatif. Salah satunya adalah dengan konsep Diet Kantong Plastik. Karena kreatif, orang harus diberi pilihan gaya hidup, maka tasnya pun ga bisa asal-asalan. Jadi sambil menyelamatkan lingkungan, dia merasa pede saat memakai tasnya.” Ujar salah satu artis yang akrab disapa Kang Emil ini.

Apa yang menarik dari desain setiap artis? Pesan yang mereka sampaikan sangat identik dengan ciri khas karya seni mereka masing-masing. Ridwan Kamil, menggambarkan pentingnya keseimbangan antara perkembangan peradaban manusia dengan kelestarian lingkungan. Tita Larasati menggambarkan berbagai belanjaan organik yang ditampung dalam reusable bag, dengan harapan dapat mensugesti masyarakat untuk menggunakannya ketika berbelanja. Rekti The S.I.G.I.T, menggunakan gaya black comedy, menyindir keserakahan manusia dalam usaha pelestarian lingkungan. Arkiv, dengan desainnya yang unik, melawan gagasan bahwa seni harus dipisahkan dari dunia konsumerisme yang berlebihan dan budaya massa. Dendy Darman dengan desain khasnya menggambarkan pohon sebagai payung bumi, pelindung alam semesta dan isinya.

“ Harapan saya, kolaborasi ini bisa berdampak baik untuk kampanye Diet Kantong Plastik.Ga banyak orang yang mikirin gerakan seperti ini. Giliran ada orang yang mikirin ini, masa sih kita ga bantu?” ungkap Dendy Darman.

baGoes Tote Kolaborasi dapat diperoleh di www.baGoes.co.id secara preorder sampai dengan 31 Maret 2013 dan di beberapa distributrion point pada bulan April. baGoes juga akan berpartisipasi di ARTE (Indonesia Arts Festival) yang diadakan tanggal 29 – 31 Maret 2013.

Untuk mengetahui informasi lebih lanjut tentang baGoes dan kolaborasi kami dengan lima artis, cek video kami di http://bit.ly/WhiKw2 atau kunjungi www.baGoes.co.id.

Press Contacts: Dwita Arlinda p. +6282116694578 | e. [email protected]

From Bawet to the World

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The League of Change official billboard.

As I mentioned in a previous post; I’m a mere supportive onlooker of this community. This time they’re at it again. The League of Change was held again in Bandung, to select Indonesian team for Homeless World Cup (HWC) 2013 in Poland!

Approaching Bawet “soccer field”, which is actually an empty space below Pasupati flyover.

Media exposure, subsequent to their achievement at HWC in Mexico City, has made their reputation reach to a much wider audience, who got inspired as well. Nonetheless, the team stays humble, but still aims for improvement. For, this time, there is also a women team!

The League of Change (LoC) gathered several teams from all over Indonesia, all bearing the stigma as marginalized and/or discriminated groups of society. Through football, their fellowship strengthens, from what I witnessed upon watching the finals of LoC.

The championship was held at a very insignificant venue; an empty, dusty space under a flyover, surrounded by dense urban kampongs, in a district called Bawet (an abbreviation for Bandung Wetan). However simple, this venue holds lots of unbeatable memories of events, such as when the 2012 national team played soccer for 24-hours non-stop as a proof of their vow when their prayer for gathering enough funding to go to HWC in Mexico City was granted. This place contains tears of disappointments and joys, shouts of anger and pride, whispers of sadness and hope. It is Alive with emotions.

The soccer field is determined by four "walls" and high nets.

The soccer field is determined by four fences with high nets.

It is from this Place that LoC formed, once again, national teams (men and women!) for HWC 2013. Congratulations, good people, for you have achieved what not just anyone can, by having the Courage to accept, the Willingness to excel and the Hard Work to prove it all. Take our hopes and inspirations along, show the world that you’re indeed “greater than trophies, more honorable than any title”!

Parktivity: Let’s Come Out and Play!

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“Activate your public space” might seem strange as a slogan for a city with public parks and facilities that are in a good condition, and whose citizens need no encouragement to come out and enjoy public spaces. But this is not the case in Bandung. Neglected public facilities have become a “new normal”. City parks become too messy/ dark/ dangerous, or – if one looks pleasant enough – often inaccessible.

Agritektur station at Parktivity

It is due to this reason that a number of communities in Bandung are attempting to make the parks more pleasant; one of them is Culindra. This community runs a program called Parktivity, and the one that just happened this weekend, at Panatayuda Park, Bandung, was the second. In Parktivity, Culindra takes a city park and creates all kinds of events on a decided day, collaborating with several other communities. The events so far included a garage sale, a barter market, outdoor “board” games, live music, a workshop on garbage separation and water reservation (biophores), and so on. At this second Parktivity, Agritektur, a community that supports local farmers, held an open kitchen and an “outdoor fine dining” experience.

At their station, made of wooden crates and blackboards, Agritektur offered us to choose a menu, then let us pick our preferred (locally grown) ingredients (plated on a tray made of woven lidi/ palm leaf ribs). Some of the available ingredients were already sliced and portioned into cups: cherry tomatoes, capsicums, onions, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, salad leaves, mushrooms (2 varieties), chicken and beef. Eggplants and zucchinis were available in whole, to be picked out off a wicker basket. After being paid for, the ingredients were cooked by a couple of guys (majoring in tourism department of a university), and, once cooked, served on a lidi plate.

They have provided a long table covered with white tablecloth, decorated with pots of yellow flowers, so we could sit and chat and hover over someone else’s freshly-cooked dishes with different ingredients. This setting intrigued conversations and provide a sort of mixed experience between “dining” and “picnic”, and even “open air concert” if a live music happened to be performing on stage.

In this 2^nd Parktivity, improvement was apparent, despite some hiccups, which should be handled with few difficulties in the next events. The impact – to urge people to use neglected parks – might not yet be obvious, but we won’t find out if we don’t start somewhere. So, let’s come out and play!

Chicken & Mushroom Fajitas

Mushroom Steak

Eggplant with Curry Sauce

Choosing ingredients

Outdoor Kitchen

Directly cooked for you!

Lights play

Stage

Live music: The Milo (photo by: Fiki)

Creativity comes from the heart

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Our Art, Design and Environment class yesterday was taught by Dr. Ratna Panggabean, one of our senior lecturers, from Craft Department. She specializes in textile craft and has spent a substantial amount of time working with indigenous people within that context.

In this class, these art, craft and design students are expected to understand that any artifact that materializes as their creations will have an impact to the environment. They also have to understand how the Spirit to Create emerges within them, which was the message from yesterday’s lecture, of which some points are derived, as follows:

Positive vibes radiate from a person who is overwhelmingly in Love.

Each person would radiate whatever aura is within him or her. Therefore, you can sometimes feel uncomfortable with a person, whom you tend to avoid or take a distance from, due to the negative ambiance. On the contrary, you would be attracted to a person who releases good vibes, and you would want to be around the person to absorb the positive energy.

How would one possess the good vibes? It is from feeling Love, for anything. One can be very much in love with another person, or with a pet, or even with the surrounding nature. Among the most known physical expression urged by this feeling is a smile. But people who Create, and who have the skills to materialize their thoughts and feelings, are able to express this overwhelming feeling through their works. This is what sometimes people refer to as Creativity that comes from the heart.

The point of this subject continues to the indigenous people who create objects due to their Love and Respect for nature, for particular moments, for the Greater Being, and for any other things that might come to mind. These artifact, which reflect the sincere feelings, are often created through genuine dedication and a lot of hard work, and therefore bear the consequences of being highly attractive.

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This session was like a reminder that one can actually influence another in an individual creativity process. The phrase “You bring out the best in me” might be a form of such phenomenon, where one becomes motivated to perform his/her best. Just imagine if one such process meet another in a collaboration, in projects and/or programs that contribute positively to society, and the environment. It might be a start to something significant if each of us can just enhance our positive vibes!