Dr Lydia Kieven
University of Bonn, Germany
Within the last decades, the long-forgotten Panji arts and traditions have undergone a process of revitalization and enactment in Indonesia and international circles. A few scholarly studies and publications conducted between the 1970s and 1990s have opened academic interest and knowledge. On a local level, the re-discovery of this outstanding indigenous cultural heritage started in the late 1990s in East Java through the initiative of individual actors, followed by revitalization activities through environmentalists, artists, historians and archaeologists; the major intention was to unearth the values and forms of the Panji tradition and to convey them to strengthening the cultural identity of Javanese people.
In 2013, the Panji arts were given wider international attention through the SEAMEO-SPAFA festival and conference in Bangkok, highlighting the Panji/Inao-tradition as a common cultural thread of the ASEAN countries. The endeavour of registration of the Panji manuscripts as Memory of the World by UNESCO, which started in 2014 and run by the Indonesian National Library in cooperation with Leiden University Library, constituted, through large-scale festivals, seminars and exhibitions, enormous progress of popularizing the Panji literature and arts in local and academic circles in Java and Bali, as well as on an international level.
Conference panels, symposiums and performances in Europe in the last few years opened attention and contributed to a broader academic and popular expertise and interest in the Panji tradition. One outcome of these developments will be the forthcoming publication of a special Panji volume.
This paper discusses the broad range of the interdependent revitalization processes, both on independent and institutional levels. The discussion integrates the ongoing general discourse on dealing with cultural heritage. In particular, the question is raised about the potentiality, benefit and perspectives of the Panji tradition and transformation.
(Presented in the 2019 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum : Panji/Inao – Preserving and Reviving the Shared Heritage of Southeast Asia, 20 June 2019, W Bangkok Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies and Department of Thai, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University)