UTILIZATION OF LOCAL RESOURCES FOR BATIK DESIGN DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Abstract

Batik is Indonesia’s cultural identity recognized as an Intangible Cultural Heritage by
UNESCO on October 2nd, 2009. This affirmation became the re-emergence of Indonesian
community awareness to deeply explore their cultural heritage and local potentials as a
revelation to create batik design, which has an indigenous characteristic of their region, for
instance, Bina Taruna Community in Loji Village. Taruna Batik is a batik center managed by
Loji villagers in the Community Learning Activity Centre (PKBM) of the Bina Taruna
Community. Despite its long establishment, Taruna Batik is still experiencing some
obstacles, especially in the development and production processes. This research aims to find
the exact issue and give some recommendations in terms of design knowledge. Experimental
methods were used to gain insight into the potential local resources and visual references of
Loji Village. We found that some local icons and natural dyes are possible to be further
explored. Moreover, batik artisans as human capital, also play a significant role in batik
design development, which could contribute to the income achievement. However, a
collaboration between community, academic, and local government is needed to overcome
the encountere problems.