The Millennial Loves Batik

Mentoring activities are routine activities carried out by Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta. Stube-HEMAT as a mentoring service for students and young people has the opportunity to accompany Social Studies of IX grade students of Tirta Marta Junior High School-BPK Penabur Pondok Indah, Jakarta.

One of the activities was visiting and practicing batik at Batik Sungsang Giriloyo, Imogiri, Bantul Regency. On October 10, 2018, 13 students, 2 teachers and 2 companion students from Stube-HEMAT visited the location either to learn about history and to practice making batik.

Students were welcome by Sunhaji, the owner and source speaker who explained the history of batik in Giriloyo, batik motifs and the process of making it. It is said that, the origin of Giriloyo batik coincided with the founding of the tombs of the kings in Imogiri located on Merak hill. In line with the establishment of the tombs of the kings in Imogiri, there is a need to maintain and guard them. For this reason, the palace assigned several palace servants to carry out the task. Interactions that occur between palace servants and the local community, especially women, opened up opportunities for knowledge transfer how to make batik. So it is not surprising that the skills of batik with fine batik motifs of the palace developed in this region. As time goes by, skill to make batik is inherited to their children or grandchildren.

When practicing batik, students were very enthusiastic about making their own batik.  Started from the process of drawing pattern, then it was drawn using wax with a tool called canting, and then it was continued with the coloring process, after that the cloth was boiled to remove the wax and then cloth was washed and dried under the sun. Even though the results were not as fine as the batik made by women in Giriloyo, the students were proud of their own work. Their passion needs to be fostered in order to love and to be proud of using authentic Indonesian product, that is batik. (ML).