It’s been a while since I wrote something a little bit serious. Let me try to do just that now.
I spent two weekends watching two concerts and went to a museum in Madrid. The concerts were held by Escuela Municipal de Música Pablo Casals, a municipal music school in Leganés, while the museum is one of the biggest and most important museum in Spain, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofÃa. The first concert was a percussion concert, the second was a flute concert, and in the museum, there was an exposition of Pablo Picasso which showed joint collection of Museo Reina SofÃa and Museé National Picasso, Paris. I didn’t have to pay anything to enjoy the concerts and Picasso’s artworks, they are “gratis” (Ha! A Spanish and Indonesian word at the same time).
Being concerts from a local school mean that most of the spectators were also locals, families of the performing students or teachers. When I came to the concerts, the hall of the school and a public municipal hall were full of people, they were “sold-out” concerts. The performances were also great, they held the percussion concert to give honor to a percussion teacher who just recently passed away, while the flute concert was held in collaboration with another public musical school of another city.
The admission to a museum in Spain mostly is free on weekends (for Museo Reina SofÃa, it’s free on Saturday afternoon and Sunday), and tourists and locals do make use of this policy. There were lots and lots of people: young and old, boys and girls, men and women, families and singles, international tourists and locals, all of them visit the museum. I almost felt overwhelmed by the number of people visited the Picasso’s exposition.
At the back of the programme sheets given to spectators in the concerts, there was a logo of Ayuntamiento de Leganés, Delegación de Cultura, while on the museum’s brochures there was a logo of Gobierno de España, Ministerio de Cultura. What does this tell us? At least for me, it shows that Spanish have access to public spaces where they can meet their fellow Spanish and, at the same time, enjoy art and culture. It also shows that Spanish government do something that ensure people in their area have access to cultural events.
Can we make this in Indonesia? As a country rich with different cultures, I think the government should do something like this as well. They should provide us with a “public room” to held cultural events, and make sure that most of us (if not all), have access to experience that.
One of the main hurdles for a “Unit Kegiatan Mahasiswa Kesenian” (Art and Cultural Students’ Activities Unit) in ITB, to do a cultural event, is the fund. They have to raise the money themselves to do a show. They have to seek for themselves a place to do rehearsals. They sell tickets for their show because they needed the money, there’s no (or very little) fund from the campus. I’m not ignoring the assistance of ITB (if any is given), but I think the campus can do more. ITB, as a public university, is changing to “privatised-public university”, a step that is hated by many but also defended by others. Hey, if you are a member of these students’ activities units, tell us your story (and probably correct me if I’m wrong) in the comment.
I went to college and worked in Bandung, a prominent Sundanese city in West Java. I lived there for almost 6 years and I have never visited the Bandung Geological Museum, one of the most important museums in the city. This is mainly because I have the impression that local museums in Indonesia are old and forgotten buildings with unmaintained collections. And generally, that is the case. Only recently, there have been some interests by locals to visit museums and it probably forced the government to renovate several of these museums.
Am I the only one who is hoping that I can also enjoy free cultural weekends in Indonesia?
*) Image for Picasso’s painting is shamelessly taken from Musée National Picasso, Paris’ site.
