Lee Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Academic and Cultural Affairs, and Mei Batubara, Pusaka Rasa Nusantara, on the U.S. Embassy-Pusaka Rasa Nusantara Luncheon on September 14. (Photograph: State Dept. / Budi Sudarmo)
YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA – On September 14 in Yogyakarta, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Division of State Bureau of Schooling and Cultural Affairs Lee Satterfield joined representatives of Indonesia’s arts and schooling neighborhood at a U.S. Embassy-hosted gala luncheon celebrating U.S help for Indonesian heritage preservation. The occasion centered round a U.S.-funded culinary heritage venture and featured conventional recipes and native elements collected by the crew main a historic effort to protect Indonesia’s numerous culinary heritage and meals traditions. The multiyear “Pusaka Rasa Nusantara” venture led by the Nusa Gastronomy Basis is funded by U.S. Embassy Jakarta by the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation Program (AFCP).
AFCP helps tasks to protect a variety of cultural heritage together with historic buildings, archaeological websites, ethnographic objects, work, manuscripts, and indigenous languages and different types of conventional cultural expression. Since its inception, the Fund has supported greater than 900 cultural preservation tasks in additional than 200 nations. Since 2001, 9 tasks in Indonesia have been funded, together with manuscript preservation coaching for the Surakarta and Yogyakarta palaces (2001), restoration of architectural glass paintings at Bandung Institute of Expertise (2006), conservation of megalithic standing in Central Sulawesi (2010), and the restoration of the Tjong A Fie Mansion heritage constructing in Medan, North Sumatra (2014).
Assistant Secretary Satterfield underscored the significance of preserving and connecting cultures on the occasion saying, “Right now we’re celebrating the meals which have fueled a tradition and a individuals for generations. By means of the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, the US and native companions can now doc and share these culinary traditions with future generations of Indonesians, and the worldwide neighborhood.”
Indonesia boasts greater than 1,340 tribes with their very own distinctive recipes. Many are being forgotten attributable to mass meals manufacturing and a reliance on oral traditions to cross down recipes from era to era. Underneath the present AFCP venture, Nusa Indonesian Gastronomy Basis is preserving Indonesia’s culinary heritage and conventional practices by documenting indigenous recipes, conserving the culinary practices, recipes, and traditions that underpin Indonesia’s numerous cultural identities. The venture additionally seeks to empower native girls enterprise homeowners and spotlight the hyperlink between native meals traditions and sustainable agricultural practices. Pusaka Rasa Nusantara is the primary venture in AFCP’s 20-year historical past to focus particularly on preserving culinary heritage and meals traditions.
The Pusaka Rasa Nusantara crew companions with ministries, native governments, nationwide and native media, foodies, native communities, influencers, and gastronomy fans. The crew’s new “Penjaga Rasa” neighborhood is a spot the place guardians of conventional recipes can share their tales and challenges. Pusaka Rasa Nusantara’s analysis has to date led the crew throughout the archipelago with journeys to Sula, Yogyakarta, and Padang, and areas for upcoming journeys embrace Sumba, Kalimantan, Belitung.
The U.S. Embassy and Nusa Gastromony Basis launched Pusaka Rasa Nusantara in November 2021, in partnership with the Directorate Normal of Tradition, Ministry of Tradition and Schooling, as a part of Pekan Kebudayaan Nasional. On the launch, Ambassador Kim famous, “As we construct again higher after the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a good time these important parts in our lives that maintain and nourish us—and the methods through which people categorical their identification even whereas fulfilling our fundamental wants.”
The September 14 gala occasion in Yogyakarta additionally featured performances by famous Indonesian alumni of U.S. authorities alternate and packages:
- Peni Candra Rini, who acquired a OneBeat Accelerator grant following her 2014 participation within the OneBeat alternate for her venture “Kinanthi Kunci Ati,’ a sequence of unique compositions and preparations of conventional gamelan music written for string quartet.
- Papermoon Puppet Theatre, contributors within the U.S. sponsored Heart Stage program in 2012, who’re based mostly in Yogyakarta and use puppets to create multimedia performances that spark dialogue amongst audiences and artists.
- Nalitari, an inclusive dance group based mostly in Yogyakarta, which emerged in from a 2013 U.S. Embassy workshop, and helps members of the disabled neighborhood unite and categorical creativity by dance.
