Book, craft and vintage suitcase: everyday media practice in creative collectives

ABSTRACT

This article examines the ways in which independent creative collectives disrupt, or counteract, the official narratives and top-down branding of a designated creative city in Indonesia. This article explores the everyday lived practices of creativity of individuals within three creative collectives in Bandung: Tobucil & Klabs, Kineruku and Omuniuum. Based on field research conducted between 2016 and 2017, and using a combination of ethnographic and visual methodology in the form of photo-documentation, the discussion also touches upon the role social media plays in the collectives’ everyday creativities. All the findings articulate their personal identities while showing the intertwining practices in both online and offline settings. These individuals and their respective creative collectives derive advantages from the social relations that they build, creating a network organically formed from below that maintains community and commonality amongst its members. This eventually leads to the formation of the creative collectives’ identities within this particular creative city. Book, craft and vintage suitcase – as three distinctive elements found in the study – become both material and symbolic elements of the rich tapestry of the everyday creativities of these creative collectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative city
• creative collective
• everyday creativity
• media practice
• Bandung

Acknowledgments

This work is made possible due to the employment as Doktorand (PhD Fellow) in Department of Communication and Media, Lund University, Sweden which I am appointed to that makes it feasible for me to conduct and be fully funded in my doctoral research since spring 2016. Thank you for the comments I received on the initial draft of this article from colleagues within the department, as well as invaluable feedback by the anonymous peer-reviewers and the journal editors. Many thanks to all informants for their consent to be interviewed, photographed and, most importantly, for their generous and warm welcome during my field research in Bandung, Indonesia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Geolocation information

Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Java, Bandung.

Notes

1. The English version of participants’ quotes appeared here are my translation. I also follow participants’ preference by referring to their first name or nickname in interview quotes presented here.

2. The photographs presented here, unless otherwise stated, have been taken by the author.

3. Seruku, the name is an abbreviation of Seru-Seru di Ruku (Ruku refers to Rumah Buku, the former nickname of Kineruku) that in this context means Having Fun in Kineruku. The abbreviation form itself, seruku, is an Indonesian word with its own meaning, though it is not commonly used in its written form. It is mostly used in vernacular informal utterance. Seruku literally means ‘my fun’. The use here by Kineruku signifies both the literal full-form phrase meaning and the playful meaning of its abbreviated form, referring to their intention to create a fun, relaxed discussion event.

4. This translation is based on the Dictionary of Indonesian Language (Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia – KBBI), the official dictionary published by the National Language Board of the country. The online version can be accessed at https://kbbi.web.id.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zaki Habibi

Zaki Habibi is a media studies researcher with an interest in the interrelation between everyday life and media practice in cities. His research covers media practice, media and memory studies, documentary photography and film, and creativity in everyday life. Since 2016 he has worked as a Doktorand (PhD Fellow) in Department of Communication and Media, Lund University, Sweden. He is also a lecturer in media and cultural studies at Department of Communications, Islamic University of Indonesia (UII), Yogyakarta. His current research examines the poetics and politics of mediated urban creativities and creative voices in Malaysian and Indonesian cities.