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Waste and cultural wonders: Yogyakarta artists put the city’s landfill on the map
While the monument itself is a response to the Anthropocene, the current, human-impacted geological epoch, the top is dedicated to hope for a more harmonious world.
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Construction of Monumen Antroposen in Yogyakarta’s Piyungan TPA landfill site on April 12, 2023. (-/Franziska Fennert)
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n a region known as the heart of Javanese culture because of its temples and nature, the idea of decomposing food waste and discarded packaging seems almost taboo.
Yet Yogyakarta’s waste problem is vast.
Each week, around 800 tonnes of waste enter Piyungan TPA, the region’s landfill site, and it frequently closes with the explanation being it has reached overcapacity. The regional administration is planning to expand the site’s current 12.5 hectares, the equivalent of 12 soccer pitches, by another 5.8 ha by 2024.
A collective of artists, activists and architects, in partnership with Germany’s Goethe-Institut, the Indonesian Upcycle Forum and the Bantul administration are attempting to find a holistic solution to this trash crisis, with a simultaneously spiritual, artistic and scientific response.
The team is building Monumen Antroposen, a temple-like structure situated within the landfill site. Drawing on ideas of the circular economy and ancestral practices, this ambitious project is hoped to be a new cultural landmark for the region, rooted in the history of Piyungan and built of bricks made from the city’s compressed waste. The soft opening is on July 29.
“Here, we’re hoping we can come back to an era where there is harmony between humans, ancestors, nature and God, but in a new version that is more up to date, that is digital,” initiator Iwan Wijono, artist and Indonesian Upcycle Forum member, said when The Jakarta Post came for a site visit on June 19.
In the past, Iwan said, the circular economy was found naturally in Indonesia. Farmers’ waste was used as fertilizer, uneaten food was for livestock, fishpond water was used for plants. “Nothing was thrown away. Nature was our teacher because nothing became rubbish.”
