Museum Bali deals with bugaboo of funding in reform era

Text by Rita A. Widiadana, photos by I Wayan Juniartha

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): If you plan to spend your holidays in Bali, you will probably choose the opulent Nusa Dua resort, beautiful Sanur and Kuta beaches or the sophisticated Ubud art village as your primary destination.

But Museum Bali, one of the most historically rich places on the island, will probably be left off your itinerary.

Although it is located in the city center near the famous Puputan Square, the museum rarely attracts visitors. Only a few people visited it during the recent school holidays.

"Going to this museum is boring. The items on display have changed very little since I was a child," Prita Dewi, a student of Udayana University, said as she watched a rock concert in front of the museum last Friday.

But for those with a deep interest in Balinese culture, the museum is a well of knowledge. It is home to an important ethnographic collection, ranging from intricate wood and stone carvings and sculptures, masks, puppets, rare manuscripts and lavish textiles, to ritual apparatus for religious festivals and rites of passage ceremonies.

The museum's eight buildings are also fine examples of the regional architectural style of Bali. The exhibit buildings, Tabanan, Singaraja and Karang Asem, are named after the Balinese kingdoms which contributed to their construction.

Each building represents architectural elements of the regency, blending a Balinese temple and a palace structure.

A tour guide, Made Yudhayana, said that he was kept busy accompanying visitors to the museum.

"European tourists, especially Dutch and German, often ask me to take them to the museum. Their interest in local culture is much greater than visitors from other countries," he said.

Developed in 1910 by the Dutch colonial administration as part of its policy to preserve indigenous Balinese culture, it was first conceived as a museum of Balinese architecture.

Curated by German artist Walter Spies, the museum's archeological and ethnographic collection started in the early 1930s. With the help of Spies, the museum did a remarkable job in collecting numerous primitive arts, artifacts and other ancient art forms linking the modern Balinese with their Austronesian ancestors.

In 1932, a special board comprising Balinese aristocrats, Dutch officials and executives from the Dutch steamship company KPM jointly managed the museum.

But when World War II broke out, almost all Dutch members left the board, putting the running of the museum in the hands of the only Balinese patron, I Gusti Made Ayun. To preserve its collection, the Indonesian government took over the museum in 1966.

Until this year, it and all state-owned museums throughout the country were managed by the Directorate of Museums at the education and culture ministry.

Handover

But administration of the museum was handed over to the provincial government of Bali in January 2001 in line with the newly implemented regional autonomy.

Hopes were that Bali's cultural agency would be able to closely monitor and resolve various problems faced by the museum's management.

However, things have not gone smoothly.

"We are now facing the real problems. It has been a very difficult transition period, both in technical and financial terms," said museum director Ni Nyoman Rapini.

Rapini and her staff have been working hard to slash their monthly budget to a minimum, including through postponing various trainings and promotional activities, since January.

"But the main problem is how to synergize the mind-set of the museum's management and local officials," added Rapini.

She acknowledged there were different perceptions among officials and museum administrators about how to preserve cultural heritage and to operate a provincial museum.

"As a non-profit and educational institution, the museum badly needs assistance from the local administration. But we understand that they neither have adequate funds nor skilled staff to support our activities.

The museum previously received an annual subsidy from the central government of about Rp 500 million to cover its operational costs and to implement various programs.

Now, the local administration allocates only Rp 250 million a year to cover all expenses, including electricity, water and maintenance.

Museum Bali is facing difficulty in maintaining its 14,000 exhibits because of a lack of skilled staff and limited display space.

"Only around 15 percent of the collection is now on display, the remaining items have to be kept in humid storage rooms, which leaves all of them vulnerable to decay," Rapini said.

"In the past, our staff regularly received training in preservation, museum management and other museum-related knowledge provided by the central government.

Some skilled employees will soon retire, leaving a wide gap between experienced and younger staff.

"How can we maintain these huge buildings and the vast collection without professional staff and adequate funding," Rapini said.

She added that several regional museums, including Subak museum in Tabanan and the Archaeological Museum in Jembrana (both in West Bali), and Yadnya museum in Mengwi, South Bali, were in a similar predicament.

Dilapidated

"All of them are in a dilapidated condition and badly need help from the government, private institutions or individuals."

The museums house invaluable collections. Gedong Kirtya museum in Singaraja, for instance, has thousands of old manuscripts about the history and origin of the Balinese and Javanese people.

Museum Subak in Tabanan records the importance of Subak, the island's elaborate irrigation and farming system, as well as the complicated structure of agricultural society in this province.

"If we don't do anything to preserve all of these historical items, the people of Bali will sooner or later lose their own roots," Rapini said.

Efforts have to be made by the provincial and regional administration together with all concerned parties.

But it's not merely a Bali problem. Many of the nation's museums suffer from the same woes of poor funding, little attention from regional administrations and a decided lack of interest from the public, more interested in watching the latest sinetron (soap opera) than to discovering the legacy of their ancestors.

Some historians and art experts worry that valuable treasures are being lost to the ravages of the tropical climate or, in some cases, theft.

In Jakarta, however, the private sector as well as individuals have paid attention to the development of museums and preservation of cultural heritage, Rapini said.

But she lamented that the same concern had yet to be found on the resort island.

"Bali is one of the richest provinces in Indonesia and there are many successful businesspeople, but their awareness of supporting the museum is still lacking."

People in Bali are also reluctant to visit the museums because of preconceived notions about their value.

"A museum can only survive if the surrounding community is already museum-oriented. In Bali, there is still a long way to go before its people realize the importance of this institution."