Hundreds of miles from Indonesia arose the roar of the Spanish wind. On the monitor screen was a Caucasian man with a sharp nose. “Assalamualaikum …” he greeted with a smile, “Can you hear me?” That afternoon wind hit his blonde hair. Several times, he adjusted the laptop and sitting position. The sound of the microphone mixed with the sound of the wind, “Yes, Fernando. We heard your voice, ”replied all other lumbung members. It was a virtual meeting of the lumbung international, a common platform where cultural collectives and actors among countries hang out zooming in preparation for welcoming documenta 15.
That day (8/07/20) Inland was the host. Fernando and his friends sat at a long wooden table. “We are here,” Fernando raised the camera, then on the screen a village was seen with trees and small hills and vast land. There are land and farms that are managed traditionally. There is a core circle which is personally owned and there is an intermediate circle which belongs to the common. Then every time the harvest was over, all the land became a common place for cattle grazing, he explained. How is it at your place? Fernando provoked the discussion.
The meeting with the Inland has provided another picture of Europe which has been identical with urban areas and everything that reflects modernity. The location where the Inland was located gave the atmosphere as if they were on another continent. There is a green expanse of nature and sheep are seen being grazed by shepherds even though their numbers are not that large.
Here is ulayat land, a kind of customary land that is also jointly owned. Someone stepped in. “Fernando, I’ve heard that you prefer to call peasant rather than farmer. Why?” Mirwan Andan asked from Jakarta. “I’m happy with this question” Fernando smiled. “The term peasant is actually political. The word is more meaningful about people’s attachment to their land. Meanwhile farmer is more about market orientation. So, we want to raise the peasant, make people proud of that label. For example, the emergence of feminism. Previously, being a woman was considered weak, lowly, and had no voting rights. Approximately So. Hehe… ”How is the narrative of the farmers in your place?
“Actually, back then, in the 1930s in Indonesia Soekarno popularized the term marhaenism. This became a symbol and at the same time a peasants’ movement at that time. ” Andan explained. From the same screen box, you can see a group of people sitting in a circle at a small table and enthusiastically facing a white computer monitor. They are the collective of Jatiwangi Art Factory in West Java, “Fernando, so you said that the land is managed based on the season with different functions in each. Who arranged that? Government or citizens? “
Fernando was silent for a moment and sighed. “It has been happening for years and from generation to generation. We can’t know for sure. “To be clear about this, I can show you a short video. Just a second. ” for a moment he played a video. Unfortunately, it cannot be played smoothly, the image is choppy. But it was clear that there were some residents who became farmers. They are happy with support for agriculture. Among other things, Inland’s existence is to see this practice again by making the curriculum and pedagogy needed.
“We also have rooftiles.” Fernando smiled. Hearing that, the Jatiwangi Art Factory collective immediately shouted cheerfully “Yey…” Fernando walked over to show it. It seems that land is among the things that connect them or maybe even all of us. You can see the old huts with roof tiles and no longer standing upright. Around it is where the peasants work collectively. Industrialization and land grabbing are among the issues that are now becoming common unrest.
Inland works together with several colleagues who form a collective to live with farmers and pastoralists to build ecosystems and manage resources to live together.