Penelehhistory.com: Surabaya (28/5/24) – Dozens of architects who are members of the Indonesian Architects Association (IAI) East Java took to the field at the Peneleh European Cemetery to support conservation efforts at the Peneleh Cemetery, especially the 10 selected graves. This conservation effort is carried out within the Peneleh as a Living Library program, which is a collaboration between Begandring Soerabaia (Indonesia) and TiMe Amsterdam (Netherland).
The IAI East Java activities lasting for two days (28-29/5/24) is initiated by the University of 17 August 45 (Untag) Surabaya, which is involved in the Peneleh as a Living Library activity. Begandring Soerabaia, TiMe Amsterdam and Untag Surabaya previously signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in February 2024.
This two-day joint activity brings the theme Conservation of the Surabaya Peneleh Cemetery and is attended by 25 architects from the Indonesian Architects Association (IAI) East Java and 17 August University (Untag) officials Retno Hastijanti and Faisal. Not to be left behind, partners from the Netherlands Max Meijer and Petra Timmer also attended.
Representatives of these three institutions: Retno Hastijanti, Faisal and Max Meijer took part in the workshop, which was held at Lodji Besar, which is the basecamp and secretariat of Begandring Soerabaia.
The workshop was intended to provide background knowledge about the cross-country activity, called Peneleh as a Living Library. It is hoped that the participating architects can contribute to the European Peneleh Cemetery conservation project.
The Peneleh Cemetery covers an area of 4.5 hectares with thousands of graves, but only 10 of which will be conserved by 2024. These graves are the graves of important people who have contributed to the city of Surabaya and the Dutch East Indies government back in the last. Among them are the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies Peter Merkus and the Resident of Surabaya Daniel Francois Willem Pietermaat.
In these 10 graves, they are as signed according to their scientific fields and capacities, the results of which will be used to support the conservation of the Peneleh Cemetery in the Peneleh as a Living Library program. They are tasked with designing 10 graves.
In the workshop, relates material was presented as a background to the reasons why there is collaboration between Begandring Soerabaia and TiMe Amsterdam with the Peneleh object, which included the Peneleh Cemetery as object. Other objects are society and the environment.
In this program Peneleh is a library. Meanwhile, communities with existing local potential are “books”. Through this “book” visitors can “read” the contents of the “book” directly.
“Reading” means interviews and asking questions directly to local residents and empirical observations of existing potential objects as “the book”. So, citizens as living objects and local potentials as important assets are “books”.
In the morning first half-time workshop, Kuncarsono (Begandring) presented the role of the Media in the conservation of the Peneleh Cemetery. Meanwhile, Nanang presented the Role of Community in the presence of the Peneleh as a Living library program.
After a theoretical workshop, they were then invited to the cemetery to identify the 10 cemetery objects in this project empirically.
Max Meijer from TiMe Amsterdam followed the activities ranging from workshops (theory) to field visits to the Peneleh European Cemetery (empirical). Max was satisfied and happy to see the activities managed by Begandring Soerabaia and Untag Surabaya. Today’s activity was openened by Imam Agus Sonhaji, the Mayor’s assistant on Economic and Development. (nng)