And how land, material and community identities shift alongside industrial changes
Sitiwinangun, which literally means ‘built land’ (siti: land and winangun: built), is a village in Cirebon with a long pottery-making tradition dating back to the thirteenth century, shaped by the intersections of Islamic, Arab and Chinese cultures. Central to this legacy is Getak Winangun, a centuries-old paddle-and-anvil pottery-making technique handed down through generations. But this traditional craft has been overshadowed by the used-tyre recycling industry established in the village since the 1970s, which employs many local people. Clay, the raw material for earthenware that used to be harvested from around the village, is also becoming increasingly scarce as residential expansion and industrial activity have restricted access to local deposits. Accordingly, (Mem)Bangun dari Tanah features works by ten artists from Cirebon, Bandung and Makassar who use earth as a material and subject matter to reflect on the Sitiwinangun’s cultural history.
The decline in local pottery-making primarily affects traditional utilitarian earthenware, such as gentong (large storage jars) and pedaringan (earthenware rice-storage vessels), which are increasingly replaced by modern plastic containers as local artisans shift towards industrial labour. Against these disappearing practices of earthenware culture, Remaining of the Abandoned (2025), by Iftikhar A. Rajwie, seeks to preserve fractured memories of the artform. The work takes the form of an angled wall with a freestanding pillar at each end, constructed from stacked terracotta pottery blocks. On each block, the artist presents images of Sitiwinangun’s pottery traditions, incorporating photographs and drawings onto the clay through photocopy transfer and lithography techniques. The images range from portraits of artisans and village landscapes to scattered pottery fragments that have been weathered by time. Collectively they suggest an invitation to the viewer to piece together a narrative of the area’s pottery heritage.
Radi Arwinda and Ramdan Kurnia’s Rupawan: House of the Nine Panakawan (2025) is a series of nine installations that reimagine the adventures of the Punakawan Nine, the (expanded) Cirebon version of the four iconic clown-servant characters in traditional Javanese and Balinese wayang kulit (shadow puppetry). Unlike the standard Javanese roster of four figures, the Cirebon tradition incorporates five additional regional characters, such as Duwala, Bagal Buntung, Ceblok, Bitarota and Sekarpandan, into the comedic ensemble. Five of the nine installations combine terracotta sculptures and wooden elements arranged in houselike structures. The Punakawan figures within them are not in the heavily stylised, traditional wayang kulit aesthetic, but more closely resemble cutesy collectible toys. It’s a fusion of traditional craft and contemporary pop-culture that suggests that the old and new can coexist without friction.
Rajwie’s other work, Neo Heritage (2025), is a series of six earthenware sculptures crafted using smoke-firing techniques that engage with a similar theme. While the sculptures mimic the form of plastic bottles, they are adorned with intricate, traditional Sitiwinangun raised relief motifs, featuring floral patterns, geometric zigzags and hand-carved textures. Here the combination of the persistence of tradition and the impermanence of contemporary life suggests that the meeting of old and new can never be frictionless.
(Mem)Bangun dari Tanah reflects on how land, material and community identities shift alongside industrial changes. As Sitiwinangun’s identity shifts from a traditional potters’ village to an industrial recycling hub, the exhibited works examine how local artisan culture survives these material transformations. By contrasting long-standing Getak Winangun earthenware traditions with industrial forms like plastic bottles and fragmented photo-transfers, these imaginative adaptations of the ceramic tradition show that Sitiwinangun’s local craft heritage is a living, evolving language that is capable of adapting to the realities of modern life – at least in a gallery setting.
(Mem)Bangun dari Tanah was at Sanggar Ikhtiar, Kabupaten Cirebon, 15–20 August
From the Autumn 2026 issue of ArtReview Asia – get your copy.