Indonesia and Its Culture From Jogja Museum Expo

More often than not, it’s a museum that holds a cultural and art expo or an exhibition. but this time, a shopping mall in the outskirt of Jogja is hosting an expo, a large exhibition for museums all around the province. This place is often doing different kinds of expo and this time, it's the museums.This exhibition is located on the first floor of Jogja City Mall. It is exhibiting a few interesting collections from all the museums that participates in it. But what intrigued me the most is that when I read the poster on Instagram, I saw they also organize a free visit to the museum with transportation included, which unfortunately, I missed it. I came around an hour just after the scheduled time for it. But, it was still worth it because I got to see some interesting collections. Afterall, it’s like museum speed run!

This expo shows cases Indonesia during the ancient time circa 9th century to contemporary Indonesia. So, in this exhibition you can find things from 9th century to colonial time and even contemporary work such as the modern style puppetry. Personally, these curated works represent all of it really well despite the limited space and the limited items that they can showcase.

In this exhibition, one of the biggest collections that was displayed is from the Air Force Museum. It is a replica of WEL-1 RI –X which apparently is an experimental aircraft made in Indonesia. This was displayed right after entering the exhibition. It was also the piece that caught the attention of many.

On the left side after the entrance, there’s a collection from Indonesian’s national hero, Pangeran Diponegoro.He’s a javanese royal who fought during the colonial time. Today his name is commemorated as street as well as university name. As you can see below, this painting showcases how the dutch burned his house. And there’s also his figure statue below the painting. When I was a kid, I visited the cave where he went into hiding and it was quite a memorable experience as I couldn’t spell his name correctly back in the day.

In this expo, not only they showcases colonial era collection and story, they also showcases quite a few ancient collection. This one below is called Umpak, it is the foundation of ancient buildings. If you ever wonder how buildings were built in the past, they use one of these Umpak. It’s definitely similar to how they build ancient temples but they have different sides.

Other than Umpak, one of the collection that represent ancient Indonesia is the miniature temple of Prambanan and Dewi Sri, a mythological person known for the goddess of fertility. By the way, the miniature temple was built exactly how it’s supposed to be built with 1000 small temples surrounding it. That is definitely different from the reality where it’s only less than 1000 small temples from survived ever since the 9th century. This one also piqued interest of many and it’s looking quite realistic.

This big round thingy that you see below is called Đông Sơn drum.Though technically it’s not from Indonesia, they are found in the country which was indicating that there was a trade between the Vietnamese and Indonesia during the bronze age. I forgot to take picture of the description but it was one of the collection that intrigued me.

Attempting to break away the notion that history and museum are boring, this expo also offers an interactive art play. It’s called “ Create Your Own museum”. In this large puzzle, you can do a role-playing as a Museum Curator and stick the magnet puzzles on the large board. I didn’t try it but I was reading how it works and it looks pretty fun. It looks like some have attempted to do so.

Since Indonesia is also an archipelago country, they also showcases barquentine which is known to sail all across the globe for diplomatic missions. It is also one of the most impressive collection from this expo. And I happen to take a good picture of it.

Then, when it comes to art and culture, they also showcases puppetry and as well as Batik cloth. There’s one puppet that showcases an acculturation between Chinese and Indonesia that you can see from the puppet’s accessories and colors.

Whereas Indonesian traditional puppet generally look as the picture below. In this painting below, they play Indonesian traditional musical instrument called Gamelan and there’s also Javanese inscription on it too.

The contemporary puppet style displays the current Indonesian president. It’s styled exactly how he’s often seen with, a big smile and a humble fashion style.

Another random collection that was thrown into the mix was this animal Atlantic horseshoe crab. The locals call it mimi lan mintuna and it has its own cultural anecdote. Since according to the description, this animal huddle together and it’s why it is used to symbolize harmony in marriage.

To be fair, I was not expecting the exhibition to start form the colonial time. It would have been better if the entrance started with the ancient time, which starts from bronze age then shift to colonial era, war time, science and eventually random collection such as the horseshoe crab and cultural anecdote and folklores. I do appreciate that they are leaving quite information packed just next to the display.

Here are some collection from the exhibition. When I was there, people took pictures of these two the most as well. The set kettle as far as I remember belong to Indo-Europe era. As you can see from these picture, they also do well with the lighting and it makes the object so much clearer and look even more exquisite.

I hope they organize something like this more often. It’s fun, educational and free too. It makes me realize that there are dozens of museum that I have yet to check out in this province. I might be going to one soon :) see you in my next adventure!