Hi everyone Hope everyone is well and drawing/photographing/doing something in their computers - away happily… I’ve finally officially graduated and is at last starting to make the comic I’ve been wanting to make for 4 years since I entered university, wish me luck XD…I also hope all of your projects and stuff goes on smoothly


But now I want to share a little rant…

I’ve just been to a swimming pool ruin.
The pool itself was dry, with scrapes of green algae and accumulated dirt baked in the sun, poolside chairs piled up like discarded vacation mementos, and the swimmers in the colorful murals oddly detached from each other as sections of walls were already dismantled. I’ve read and heard and bickered about the demolition of the Tjihampelas swimming pool for over a month then, but it was the first time that I actually saw the carnage firsthand and sat amongst the ruins.

It was an almost surreal, and for a moment I found myself fervently wishing that I had merely stepped into some off-frequency world where the pool was in ruins due to some apocalyptic debacle or other cracky things rather than simply greedy investors and sheer ignorance.

Well, but it’s not XD The Tjihampelas Swimming pool in the rapidly growing commercial district of Cihampelas is supposedly up for demolition to make way for a glitzy new mall or parking lot or hotel with a waterboom park or something along that line (it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish one blocky garish new building from another here in bandung ) And although it’s not exactly an ordinary swimming pool - in fact it was the first swimming pool to be built in my city during the Colonial times, and it is also unique in that the water comes directly from a natural spring nearby (without any pumps or other standard equipment. I sort of peeked into the cave-like natural water reservoir behind the pool building some time ago before it was demolished), I guess it doesn’t really matter in the face of such burgeoning cash that would be gained from selling out the place.

The majority of Bandung citizens, myself included, are not really strangers to the mowing down of heritage buildings and landscapes in the name of ‘the city’s economic growth’ Just a month ago, an antique shophouse in the historical shopping district of Braga was suddenly found to be demolished (the guys doing it did the dismantling from the back and insides first, so when it was found out it was pretty much too late although it was listed as a heritage building), and another antique swimming pool near my former school has already been boarded off and is just waiting to be demolished. The list goes on and on from previous demolitions, and for ones concerned with heritage conservations, it’s like drafting up a mounting death tally. As it probably should be for a lot of people, perhaps.

Along my dabbling about in the Heritage conservation thing, I’ve been asked more than once about the actual importance of conserving heritage buildings and landscapes. Many points out that just because a majority of people on the Heritage conservation field comes from an architectural background that it’s merely about some sort of misguided, nostalgic-oriented, self-importance of supposedly ‘valuable architecture’ – disregarding such things as economic values and well…economic values (what else there is, anyway )

Yet I must digress. Heritage conservation is not merely some nostalgic effort to cling to the past, ignorant of current conditions. It is called ‘heritage conservation’ because what we’re trying to conserve are not simply ‘buildings’ or ‘gardens’ or ‘complexes’ – but there are also values and cultural legacies within those places that still has a place even in this rapidly growing world. Old things has within them values handed down from the past that might do good if appreciated rather than simply shunning it for newer, shinier, and quicker things that keeps flooding us everyday.

These are times when we are growing and changing much, much quicker than we can perhaps adapt to without being rootless and rather lost. Finding and appreciating values handed down from times past might actually make us step slower, more carefully, with more appreciation and consideration to things around us. There are painstaking thoughts and incredible work ethos to be found on the sturdy walls of an old building, and value in gardens and open public spaces that might take us to contemplate nature and our surroundings more carefully, how traditional constructions represents cultural values handed down orally from elders and the generation linkages that goes through it. It’s inside these things that we might take root while still facing the current world.

Heritage conservation in itself is not terribly rigid in implementation, as some might feel that ‘conservation’ means keeping a building or a place in the same way as it was like, hundeds of years ago or such. But actually it’s a pretty flexible thing, for the cultures and values that is being kept is constantly fluctuating and interacting with newer factors. An old builidng might undergo adaptive reuse where the major physical form would be the same yet the function and usage would differ accordingly. If handled correctly, the heritage factor can actually be a major selling point for business. So well, anyone saying that an old building or place cannot give of sufficient monetary benefit is just lazy, yo

/End of rant. Sorry for whoever actually read this XD Um, so, it won’t hurt to pay more attention to heritage sites around us…and more awareness for those sites might help us appreciate our city more and if anything ever happens to them…:3


A little news from ..
For comic artists or comic enthusiasts in Bandung, the Manyala Comic community is re-hosting a routine comic workshop in Tobucil (Jl. Aceh No. 56, near gor Saparua). The host changes every workshop, each with different topics, but anyone is welcome (encouraged! ) to share and just generally have fun together ^^. A new batch of the little workshops will start 5th May at 15.00 WIB-ish, then if everything goes well, it’ll be held in two week intervals from there on at the same time (schedules should be up at www.kcbmanyala.multiply.com). Drop by if you have time, plus the little Tobucil bookshop is a delight to be in even if you’re doing nothing ^^


PS : a little feature for my friend, ~Aes-Aelin for she has opened up a fanart account under the name of . If you are into Teen Titans or the DC comic universe in general, then you’re in for a treat of her ‘freshly squeezed visual mischief’

PPS : If you have time, why not also drop by my sister and my mother’s galleries :3