Rujak

Katanya menggunakan sapu tangan, pada akhirnya dan dalam jangka panjang, lebih ramah  lingkungan, ketimbang menggunakan kertas tisu untuk mengelap keringat atau mengelap sesudah mencuci tangan dan mulut.

Jadi, mari kembali ke kebiasaan lama itu: Lebih perlente pula!

Mencuci sapu tangan (dan lain-lain) tidak harus menggunakan detergent yang merusak lingkungan, tapi bisa gunakan sabun alami

Plastic straw at Penang Bistro, Jalan Kebon Sirih, Jakarta

Text and Photo by E.Sutanudjaja and M. Kusumawijaya.

An unnecessary “new” habit is being introduced everywhere: plastic straw, even for drinking water.  It is not even necessary to use plastic straw to drink anything, as a matter of fact. Would you like to talk to any restaurant’s manager whenever and wherever you find it? Perhaps speaking softly, but convincingly, not to patronise, but just to suggest, that we, as consumers do not really need, let alone appreciate, it?

We might even lose the word “to drink”, as we are changing to “to suck”.  So far, wine and beer are safe from the straw. So, we do not need to yet change the expression “Let’s go for a drink” to “Let’s go for a suck”.

Jika kita pergi ke restoran dan memesan minuman, sering sekali dijumpai pihak restoran mengirimkan minuman kita dilengkapi dengan sedotan. Malah untuk tempat-tempat tertentu, kita bisa mengambil langsung sedotan, karena kebetulan sudah tersedia di hadapan kita.

Sedotan dengan bahan dasar plastik, tentunya hanya sekali pakai, dan setelah itu dibuang. Sedotan mungkin memiliki dimensi kecil, namun jika dikalikan dengan jumlah restoran dan rumah makan di Jakarta atau kota-kota lain yang menggunakan dan menyediakan sedotan, maka jumlah itupun menjadi luar biasa.

Kata “minum” malah akan kehilangan makna, karena kita menjadi “menyedot”?

Pertanyaanya, perlukah kita minum dengan menggunakan sedotan?

What is Post-Autistic Economics? Click here.

Antonius Wiwan Koban: Rujak Pengantin itu biasa disediakan di resepsi atau acara pernikahan dengan cara adat (adat Jawa, kalo tidak salah).  Nanti kalau para tamu merasa rujaknya pedas, ada artinya; kalau rujaknya terasa manis, ada artinya, menurut kepercayaan tradisi. Kalau Rujak Ibu Hamil, bisa dibuat atas pesanan ibu hamil yang sedang mengidam, bisa juga untuk acara tujuh-bulanan masa kandungan, cara kerja maknanya hampir mirip dengan Rujak Pengantin.

Di Taiwan ada peraturan wajib arkade di semua kota, kecuali bagian-bagian yang dikecualikan.  Menurut Kuo Chaolee, Direktur Gradutae Institute for Urban Planning, National Taipei University, aturan ini diwarisi dari jaman Jepang. “Baik untuk iklim Taiwan, banyak hujan dan panas sekali kalau musim panas.”  Karena itu pejalan-kaki dapat leluasa di hampir seluruh kota Taipei dan kota besar lainnya. Di Taipei umumnya arkade terjaga sebagai wilayah umum, terutama untuk pejalan kaki, tetapi di kota lain mulai mengalami “privatisasi”, arkade menjadi perluasan tempat duduk rumah makan atau lain-lain kegiatan privat. Selain itu, termasu di Taipei juga,  di sana sini mulai terlihat dijadikan tempat parkir sepeda motor.

Sepeda motor memang kendaraan populer di Taiwan. Bahkan ada tempat menunggu lampu-merah khusus di perempatan jalan. Juga untuk yang mau belok ke kiri, dapat mengambil tempat di jalur dari kanan. (Di Taiwan orang berjalan di sisi kanan jalan).

February 13, 2010

Aarhus Art Building,

Centre for Contemporary Art

OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS

IMAGINE

Towards an eco-aesthetic, 2011

The Aarhus Art Building,

Centre for Contemporary Art, Denmark

Artists and curators are

hereby invited to submit

proposals for 2011.

Deadline March 15

http://www.aarhuskunstbygning.dk

Only when people are in a position to use their own creative

potentials, which can be enhanced by an artistic imagination, will a

change occur [....] Art can and should strive for an alternative that

is not only aesthetically affirmative and productive but is also

beneficial to all forms of life on our planet.

Rasheed Araeen: Ecoaesthetics. A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century

In the autumn of 2009, Rasheed Araeen, editor of the respected

periodical on art and culture Third Text, launched a frontal attack on

the modern ego and the recuperation of the avant-garde. Instead of the

continued rigid production of objects and a stubborn anchoring in art

institutions, Araeen pleads for a collective artistic imagination as

the only road towards “[…] rivers and lakes of clean water, collective

farms and the planting of trees all over the world.”

From what is perhaps a slightly one-track masculine perspective,

Araeen’s manifesto examines earlier failed attempts to step down from

the pedestal of the bourgeoisie in favour of a collective commitment

to our surroundings and the environment. Nevertheless, the notion of

art as a positive, giving alternative unhampered by the restraints of

either representation or negation is relevant in a new decade in a new

millennium.

In trying to conceive of such an alternative it seems a reasonable

first step to take a closer look at alliances between art and

sustainable development For at the roots of the idea of sustainability

lie an ethical imperative and a persistent struggle against inequality

– parameters that seem indispensable today if we actually want to

imagine change and alternatives.

The notion of sustainability first aroused political attention in the

1970s, although it can also be traced back to the 1960s in the shape

of various grass-roots movements. In 1972 the UN Conference on the

Human Environment was held in Stockholm – this was the first of its

kind, and at the same time the first transnational forum that even

considered the environment and society as a single, interconnected

issue.

The conference was strongly influenced by the book Limits to Growth

published by the global think tank Club of Rome the same year, in

which the problems of exponential growth vis-à-vis the limited

resources of the Earth were outlined. The book inspired thoughts about

the limits of growth in terms not only of the human population but

also of economic factors. This realization that the Earth was not an

inexhaustible storehouse of resources contributed to the development

of a notion of sustainability that takes the future generations of the

Earth into account.

The correlation between ecological and social issues is a fundamental

aspect of thinking about sustainability, and consequently also

involves concepts like responsibility and ethics. Similarly, in

various movements that have consistently had sustainability as a

central point of reference since the 1970s, for instance Social

Ecology and Ecofeminism, sustainability is inextricably bound up with

an astute critique of the dominant hierarchical structures.

The notion of sustainability thus includes the consideration of social

structures, subjection and domination, ethics and economics on an

equal footing with consideration of the environment and the ecology.

If art today is to have the above-mentioned positive starting point,

it needs to think about this complex apparatus as a whole and imagine

an alternative. Only thus can we move towards an art that is healing

and affirmative – and thus towards an eco-aesthetic in the new

millennium.

With this background the Aarhus Art Building is hereby issuing an Open

Call for Proposals for 2011. We welcome suggestions for group

exhibitions, solo exhibitions and workshops as well as suggestions for

projects in public space. Guidelines can be found at

www.aarhuskunstbygning.dk. The guidelines must be followed in the

application to make it eligible for consideration.