ANTARA Heritage Walk invites participants to trace Yogyakarta's struggle heritage

The activity can bring participants closer to history while fostering a sense of patriotism and national awareness.

Yogyakarta (ANTARA) - The ANTARA Heritage Walk and Photo Hunting activity, part of the ‘Merdeka: Celebrating Independence, Nurturing Togetherness’ photo exhibition, invited the public to learn about the struggle and history of Yogyakarta through a number of historic spaces in the Titik Nol Kilometre area to the Yogyakarta Palace on Saturday.

The activity, guided by the ‘Jalan Liar dan Rasan-Rasan’ (Jaran) community, traversed several areas from Titik Nol Kilometre, Kampung Kauman, to the Yogyakarta Palace area, sharing stories about the history of the places passed.

‘Titik Nol Jogja has many symbols of struggle, then we enter the Kampung Kauman Keraton area, where the narratives of struggle and heroism from time to time are also something we try to reread,’ said history and culture enthusiast Paksi Raras Alit, who served as the history guide for the Heritage Walk.

He said the route was chosen to match the theme of struggle in the ‘Merdeka’ photo exhibition while connecting a number of spaces that have narratives of struggle in Yogyakarta.

To make the historical stories in the Heritage Walk more accessible to the public, Paksi used a storytelling approach through conversation and ‘rasan-rasan’ that remains based on historical sources.

‘The memorisation version of history is boring. In walking events, feel-feel or wild walking always uses a first approach of gossip or rasan-rasan stories, but there are correct historical sources,’ he said.

Heritage Walk committee member Aditya Pradana Putra said the activity was chosen because the ‘Merdeka’ photo exhibition is located in the Titik Nol Kilometre area, which has many historical traces related to the development of Yogyakarta and the nation’s struggle.

He hopes the activity can bring participants closer to history while fostering a sense of patriotism and national awareness.

‘Through this Heritage Walk, it is hoped to foster a sense of patriotism and certainly national awareness for the public, especially those who take part in this event,’ he said.

One participant, Nina Sugianto, said the activity provided additional insight into the history of Yogyakarta, and the experience of walking through the kampung also provided knowledge not always obtained through formal learning.

‘I am very happy to take part in something like this because it adds knowledge and insight that is sometimes outside what is learned at school,’ she said.