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Monetizing batik in the creative economy
In junior high school, I dressed in something I recognized as batik because it had patterns with shades of brown
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span>In junior high school, I dressed in something I recognized as batik because it had patterns with shades of brown. In college, my friend gave me Thai silk and I wondered about its close resemblance to batik with its hibiscus pattern. I then heard that printed batik was not the real Indonesian batik and ever since, I feel tricked whenever I see printed batik, especially expensive ones. It seems that although batik is everywhere, the familiarity of it does not come together with the right conception.
To optimize the monetizing of batik is to treasure batik for its two characteristics.
First, as a dynamic cultural product that should continue to evolve without losing its identity. More than the motive, batik is about the making process. Batik’s innate character is its creation process and thus Indonesian batik comprises handwriting and stamp batik.
Traditionally, the creation involves various handwork like motif designing, malam (wax) and dye mixing, layout making with canting, and so on until the wax releasing process.
Such understanding is recognized by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization when it inscribed Indonesian batik as an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity”.
The dynamic of batik lies in varied motifs, both conventional and contemporary. The conventional motives are the ones made by our ancestors which depict traditional values. For instance, the mega mendung (cloud-like motifs) from Cirebon reminds us to control and restrain anger.
Contemporary patterns include chicken and large motifs of landmarks tend to depict something with no specific value. Meanwhile, a highly appreciated masterpiece from Indonesia is software that can produce fractal batik.
Handwriting and stamp batik may be inefficient and results in higher pricing. However, one should consider both pride and profit. In this era of Industry 4.0, we cannot exclude ourselves from digital improvement, but it is an irony to proudly wear what we thought as part of our culture without realizing that it is actually fabric printed abroad by a foreign company.
It is almost inevitable to use imported goods such as coloring products instead of natural dye, yet at least one could consider which product contributes more to the Indonesian economy, which involves more Indonesians beyond traders.
Further, the creative economy is about maximizing the ability to create and monetize. The heart of the creative economy is intellectual property (IP) rights and one of the key elements is added value, providing something new or different to some extent compared to existing objects. IP rights give moral and economic rights to the entitled parties to use the object for a certain period of time. For batik, the relevant IP rights are inter alia copyright, trademark, geographical indication and industrial design.
Monetization challenges related to IP start from a lack of awareness about IP, which may get more complicated in this era of Industry 4.0. Klaus Schwab, in The Fourth Industrial Revolution, said unlike previous revolutions, Industry 4.0 was evolving at an exponential, rather than linear pace. Due to the evolving velocity of everything including the supply and demand of improvement or differentiation of the product, the time given to exploit the object of IP may not be used effectively enough.
The distance of power between big corporations and new existing companies used to be great. The big ones had more flexible time in managing their monetization of IP as they had the sole call on deciding when the new product entered the market. But now, many start-ups are ready to compete in terms of quality of the product if not yet the quantity, forcing the established to speed up their product development.
Indonesian entrepreneurs may question how far is the exploitation of their IP worth the time and effort spent to obtain it. Thus relevant stakeholders are expected to create a conducive ecosystem for monetizing IP.
The existing concept of IP should be applied more and batik artists as well as Indonesian creative entrepreneurs should be more agile in taking the advantage of IP.
It is a good start if batik artists and entrepreneurs give significant added value to the creation of batik with or without using imported goods.
One of the supportive acts from the government is the facilitation of batik artist certification. The Creative Economy Agency has presented the program as part of the initial steps in supporting Indonesian cultural heritage to boost the national economy.
The spirit is not to eliminate printed batik or limit uncertified batik artists, yet to open the way for handwriting and stamp batik to compete with printed batik in terms of quality, if not price. Art and personal preference may be unmeasured, yet a standardized process can guarantee an expected quality to some extent.
To survive and thrive in the creative economy, batik must stick to its identity, maintain its uniqueness compared to other fabric and level up through batik artists with the ability to create. All stakeholders should collaborate to improve the monetization of Indonesian batik.
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The writer works for the Creative Economy Agency and will soon begin studying at Berkeley Law School. The views expressed are her own.
