Batik: Revealing the Meaning

Grabbing the Hope

Batik Museum of Yogyakarta and Ullen Sentalu

Batik is a training topic of Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta, Cultural Heritage: Batik as a world cultural heritage from Indonesia, even batik has been designated as one of the masterpiece of oral and non-human cultural heritage by UNESCO in October 2009. This training is conducted to increase awareness about intangible cultural heritage and to encourage young people to participate for culture preservation and to get to know leaders who maintain the cultural heritage.

The batik fabrics with ‘Kawung, Truntum, and Sidomukti’ patterns are displayed to welcome visitors at Batik Museum of Yogyakarta located on Jalan Sutomo no. 13 A, Yogyakarta. This is the first batik museum in Indonesia having thousand collections of batik cloth. The museum was founded as the initiative of the family of Hadi Nugroho and R. Ng. Jumima Dewi Sukaningsih in 1977, because of their love to batik as well as desolation because they often recognized that many pieces of batik were used as clothing material without considering the meaning of the pattern. Entering this museum, visitors are brought to the past atmosphere because of various ancient furnitures and photo decorations, and collections of old batik fabrics, tens or even hundreds years old are displayed around the room, including various types and functions of ‘canting’.

Canting is a batik tool, consist of copper cup for liquid wax and wood as the handle. Other ingredients used to make batik are 'malam' or paraffin, ‘gondorukem’ (gum damar), honeycomb nests and other ingredients. The word 'Batik' does not refer to cloth with its certain pattern but the process of creating a work using wax and colouring. The process of batik itself consists of Nglowong, pouring wax on the pattern on the fabric; Nembok, pouring wax on the pattern image to protect the base color; Medel, giving the first color, usually dark; Ngerok, removing wax in certain parts using ‘cawuk’ (scraping tool); Mbironi, pouring wax to certain parts to protect the fabric during the second colouring phase; Nyoga, colouring fabric with soga or brown colour using Soga barks as natural colouring; and Nglorot, cleaning all the wax in the cloth by boiling the fabrics.

Each batik pattern actually has a message according to the background of making; even it often contains prayers and hopes. 'Kawung' pattern has a message that human being is necessary to remember its origin and always improve life. Initially this pattern could only be used by the king. 'Truntum' pattern is usually used by the bride's parents during marriage ceremony as symbol of ‘guiding’ the brides entering a new alife as a family. The 'Sidomukti' pattern is worn by the brides during the wedding because it contains prayers for the family to achieve happiness. Besides Yogyakarta and Surakarta batik, there is Pesisiran batik that develops in Cirebon, Pekalongan, Lasem and Demak with brighter colours. Coastal batik patterns are more varied because of the influence of Chinese, Indian, European, Arabic and Japanese cultures.

Next is Ullen Sentalu Museum in Kaliurang, a museum that combines nature and preservation of the Mataraman Javanese cultural heritages. The museum was pioneered by Haryono family since 1994 and officially opened to the public on March 1, 1997. 'Ullen Sentalu' is an acronym for ULating bLENcong SEjatiNe TAtaraning LUmaku which means a ray of light that illuminates the journey of life. Blencong is a lighting device on the shadow puppet stage. The museum's architecture is unique because it combines Indis and modern buildings, some of which are below the ground level and some conform the contours with its twisting aisle and its stone floors. Another uniqueness of Ullen Sentalu is no text explanation displayed on each item. Direct narration from the guide is the only bridge of interaction between ancient cultural heritage objects with the visitors that they can listen to past events and make reflection at the present time.

The Batik room in this museum keeps ancient batik collections of Yogyakarta typical with its simple patterns and white, brown and dark-based color, while Surakarta’s is known with more detail pattern and yellowish-based color. Indeed, if the ancient cultural heritage is uniquely packaged by involving human values and integrated with nature will bring admiration as human masterpieces as well as an optimism in struggling for the values of life. It's time to reveal the meaning of past cultural heritage and to catch optimistic messages to live in the present. (TRU).