RISE AND FALL OF SUGAR INDUSTRY IN INDONESIA


Sugar Factory Olean, Situbondo, East Java, Indonesia (Source: Het Rozenhuis)

The Sugar Industry in Java as shown during the International World Exhibition in 1910 in Brussels, Belgium (Source: J.W. Ramaer) 

Heritage hands-on is selected as one of the participants “Sharing and Collaborative: The Footprints of Asian Sugar Industrial Heritage” is a part of the international symposium on “Multilateral, Sharing and Collaborative: Developing a Common Vision of Asian Industrial Heritage.”

This event will take place in the Cultural & Creative Industries Park, Taiwan, 30th May – 31st August. The organizer is the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Ministry of Culture, Taiwan and it is implemented by National Yunlin University of Science & Technology Department of Cultural Heritage Conservation.

Heritage hands-on will present the exhibition about "Rise and Fall of Sugar Industry in Indonesia".  

In the 1930’s Indonesia was the world second largest sugar exporter in the world after Cuba. In 2016 Indonesia was and is the world second largest sugar importer in the world after the USA. How this could happens?

Many analysis tried to provide answers to the above question. This exhibition will show facts and figures as an objective answer to understand ups and downs of sugar industry in Indonesia. Those facts and figures help viewers as well to predict potential former sugar factories as part of industrial heritage in the country. It is huge and in abundance, tangible and intangible elements of sugar production world, entangled with economic, social, cultural and politics of Indonesia.

Currently, there are about 33 sugar factories older than 100 years and this fact assures that the industry can play an important role in raising awareness about industrial heritage in Indonesia. There is no doubt about what the sugar industrial heritage can contribute to the current education and economic development.

The exhibition consists of chronology of sugar industry emporium during the era of the Dutch East Indies and after Independence, supported by milestones in the sugar history as follow:

1.      Application of the Cultivation System
2.      Building of the Headquarter of Sugar State-Owned Enterprise (HvA)
3.      Publication of a book about anti-forced labor titled Max Havelaar
4.      Profile of Probolinggo, one of the former Sugar Towns in East Java
5.      The First Adaptive Reused of Former Sugar Factory Colomadu
6.    Sugar Industry in Java (as shown in the International World Exhibition 1910 in Brussels)
7.    Film about the Sugar Factory Olean (the only factory that still run steam engines)

This is a continuation of awareness efforts that Heritage hands-on has been doing since 2013 about industrial heritage in Indonesia. There are presentations and paperworks have been delivered in Europe and Asia including in Indonesia about assets and potentials industrial heritage that needs attentions before they fall aparts and disappears. 

Sumatra Heritage Trust (BWS) from Medan is also selected as participant of the exhibition in Taiwan 2018 showing theme of  Sugar Industry Development Project outside Java with a case study of history and details of daily life of Sei Semayang sugar cane plantations and sugar mills in Sumatra. 

Heritage hands-on would like to express gratitudes to many persons who have supported for the exhibition: Yulia Setja Atmadja, Krisnina Maharani A. Tandjung and Warna Warni Indonesia Foundation, Dr. Yuke Ardhiati, Obbe Norbruis, Pieter Veraart and Het Rozenhuis and Peter Timmer.





Popular posts from this blog

REFLECTION ON 2023

INFILL DEVELOPMENT