Festival to make bamboo an environmental issue
By Rayya Makarim
JAKARTA (JP): The environment has become a much discussed issue in the last decade. Countries, organizations and individuals are all searching fervently for their role in helping to preserve planet Earth.
Consequently, the Environmental Bamboo Foundation (EBF) will hold the first Music in Nature Festival on Sunday in Ubud, Bali.
Organized by internationally renown designer and environmentalist Linda Garland, it will host a plethora of artistic traditions which utilize bamboo as their main medium.
An afternoon filled with music and dances from Bali, Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Maluku, Flores will be presented on seven stages set up on the contours of the 10-hectare private estate in the village of Nyuh Kuning, Ubud.
The spectacle will also exhibit sculptures by local artists along with concession stands and various restaurants and Balinese warungs. The famous director Oliver Stone (JFK, Platoon), representatives of Peter Gabriel's Real World Music record company and Rolling Stone magazine will be among those present at the event.
The festival serves as the introductory event for next year's "Fourth International Bamboo Congress, Trade Show and Festival", but will concentrate on musical performances from Africa, Bolivia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Mexico.
More than 30 countries will participate in promoting the use of bamboo as an environmentally responsible non-wood forest resource for ecological, social, and economical means.
The EBF was founded by Linda Garland three years ago. One of the first to introduce bamboo designs for the international market, her works have decorated the houses of celebrities all over the world. Today she works exclusively with bamboo in response to her personal commitment to finding a solution to the world's diminishing tropical rain forests.
Her fascination for bamboo has a lot to do with the multiple uses of the plant, which can, among others, be used for soundproofing.
Garland, who has lived in Bali for the past 18 years, is determined to encourage other designers to develop prototypes of bamboo products to inspire its use as an esthetic alternative for scarce timber resources.
"At the turn of the century there was 150 bamboo factories in London because it was fashionable. With the 1995 Congress, we are trying to make it fashionable again," she said.
The importance of bamboo has reached a global level. Holland is presenting a traveling bamboo exhibition, while Germany is doing something similar. The growing awareness of this worthy cause will hopefully emphasize the role of bamboo in partially solving a vital ecological problem. Thus, the upcoming festival will host thousands of researchers, associates and friends to promote bamboo. After all, as Confucius said, "Man can live without meat, but will die without the bamboo."