Wardiman opens design students exhibition
JAKARTA (JP): Design students from 12 universities and colleges are displaying their creations during a week-long exhibition at the National Museum in Central Jakarta.
The exhibition, opened yesterday by Minister of Education Wardiman Djojonegoro, is part of Design Month '95, held by the Indonesian Craft Design Development Foundation to stimulate the public's appreciation of design.
The exhibition includes designs of interiors, toys, packaging, stamps and a model of a waste treatment and disposal vehicle.
The designs on display are the winning works from a contest held by the foundation recently. The winners, to be formally announced on Oct. 2, were selected from among the contestants who sent in designs in the toy, souvenir, pearl jewelry and other categories.
The participating universities and colleges are from Jakarta, Bali, Yoygakarta, Solo, Bandung and Semarang. Students of the new Pelita Harapan University in Tangerang are also participating.
Shortly after the opening of the exhibition, the small space provided for the display prompted one visitor to complain that the show does not provide a proper look at the process of design.
Primadi Tabrani of the Fine Arts Department of the Bandung Institute of Technology said appreciation of design must include understanding of its process.
"It would be unfair to pass judgment based on the end product alone," Primadi said.
Information on how a design is made, he added, might reveal whether a college or university with relatively poor facilities can nevertheless produce an exceptional design.
The discussion following the opening of the exhibit, during which Primadi was one of the speakers, revealed limited understanding of design, even within the profession.
Primadi urged students to venture beyond technical skills and the physical aspects of design to and understand thoroughly the background of their objects.
For instance, he said, "We cannot view the reliefs of the Borobudur temple (in Central Java) from the point of view of western esthetic values."
Noted batik designer Iwan Tirta said he conducts extensive research on Central Javanese dance, music and language in seeking to understand the region's batik.
A lecturer from the Surabaya Technological Institute, Agus Windharto, pointed out the lack of industrial product designers in the country.
"We only have 280 product designers ... compared to 900 in Singapore, 3,000 in Hong Kong and 650 in Malaysia," said Windharto, who is also an advisor at the Bandung-based PT Industri Pesawat Terbang Nusantara, IPTN.
He urged designers to realize they are the key part of research and development units who must work together with specialists in a number of disciplines.
"We should also invite product designers from outside universities and colleges to give lectures," he said. "A product designer from an automobile manufacturer would be much more useful to students than a lecturer who only theorizes about designing."
He acknowledged that product designers are not yet recognized as a necessity in Indonesia because the subsidiaries of foreign manufacturing plants here simply follow designs sent from company headquarters. (anr)