A Whole New World: Art Students’ Experience In Promoting Rivers’ Environmental Problems Through Environmental Art Activity

Abstract

Urban river environments in Yogyakarta have continually been in a deteriorating state for the last three decades. As it is getting worse many elements of society are trying to raise awareness on of the destruction of river environments. Artists are one of those elements who are involved in environmental activities. Despite their capacity to attract much attention, artists’ involvements in the environmental art campaign are still limited to a handful of top artists. To promote environmental awareness among future artists, a workshop was designed to increase art students’ awareness towards river environmental problems. This research aimed to describe students’ experience and their involvement in environmental art activity and its impact on their environmental awareness on river environment. Twenty students from three departments, Fine Art, Craft, and the Design Department were recruited to join the program. They were given an introductory course on river environments and its problems. At the end of the course they were asked to create an art installation based on their basic knowledge of the problems with river environments in Yogyakarta, and their art. In depth interviews were conducted after the workshop and the art exhibition to reflect their experiences during the program. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis as a research method, the data were analyzed through three steps: 1) initial coding and finding the themes, 2) connecting the themes, and 3) comparing with other themes. The results showed three main themes as their interpretative experiences. These themes are: the river as a new medium of expression, the river as new knowledge, and the river as a memory of the past. The way students framed problems for creating the environmental art were influenced by their Art training. Students from the Design Department were focused on tackling the real problem of the rivers whilst the students from the Fine Art and Craft department were more focused on the symbolic problem of the rivers.