Concept "Seni Kota Cerita", ARTSEM, Semarang, Des 2010

tarted from receiving a letter containing the event abstraction and the detailed description about an art event called ARTSEM to respond a city of Semarang, we were called to create visualization of an artwork that can summarize the city of Semarang as a whole, its people, and the story happening in the city.


We came up with the idea of a graphic art after so much meetings and arguments for three weeks. In the beggining, It was made of a round 60 cm diameter plain paper that was collored with red, yellow, and blue paint and a pitch black text painted in the middle of the paper. We published and spread it out all over the places in Semarang which became noticeable propragand posters.
We placed the posters in the main area of the city of Semarang on the 6th to 10th December 2010. We made people more aware of the hopes and the memories of the city of Semarang by putting posters in certain places that had connection to the text itself. Such examples are ‘Seni Yang Bergerak’ (moving art) –we placed it on a public transportation and bus stop, ‘Galeri Terakhir’ (last gallery) –we placed it in front of the cementery monument of Semarang.


In the end of the event, there were many reactions from the people regarding the propaganda posters that we spread. The government thought the posters were a disturbance, while the people of Semarang thought that they were a good uniqueness of the day. The commitee holding the exhibition at Semarang Gallery thought that it was brilliant idea, therefore they invited us to exhibit the summary of what we did, in one of the place inside the gallery which appeared to be a more challenging option.