BHINNEKA TUNGGAL IKA || Unity In Diversity
"Hari Kemerdekaan"
INDEPENDENCE DAY
August 17th, 2017, marked the 72nd year of Indonesia declaring Independence and the end of World War II.
PAWAKA is a Sanskrit word meaning Fire, and more importantly, it is the name we derived from Fa's grandfather, Soewarso Pawaka - PAWAKA was his official code name assigned during World War II.
Passing away in 2015, the late Soewarso Pawaka was the last surviving Indonesian war veteran from the time Indonesia declared Independence in 1945 and the end of WWII.
It is for this occasion, of both remembrance and celebration, that we share our fourth collaboration with you.
BHINNEKA TUNGGAL IKA || UNITY IN DIVERSITY
Creative: PAWAKA
Photography: Ryan Tandya || Styling: Don Aretino || Models: Essi and Kyla || Make-up and hair: Hendrick Gebhardt || Pieces: Ayu Udiyani
Islands govern our hearts.
depending on each other, we depend on tomorrow.
You and I - we are free.
For this collaboration, we teamed up with fellow Indonesian creatives (based in Berlin) Don Aretino and Ryan Tandya.
Don and Ryan synthesising their dual energies - in honouring the multiplex relationship of tradition and modernity in their Indonesian culture, they present a gracious interpretation of current identity.
BHINNEKA TUNGGAL IKA (Unity in Diversity) is a central notion in the Indonesian ideology of Pancasila - a philosophical theory of the state that praises religious and ethnic plurality. With more than seventeen thousand islands, Indonesia is the world’s largest island country; and just like the millenary patches of land, the people are wonderfully diverse.
Don Aretino is a Berlin based menswear fashion designer from Medan in North Sumatra. By combining traditional Balinese motifs, fabrics, and jewelry with contemporary geometric patterns and cuts, he achieves harmony in free expression.
Respected Indonesian fashion photographer, Ryan Tandya, spends his time back and forth between Berlin and Jakarta. Ryan embraces cultural potencies that are perceptible in all his photographic works and international editorials.
Venturing beyond predefined rules of religion or tradition, these like-minded individuals both challenge and respect existing aesthetic norms. An interwovenness of past and present, (cross)-cultural and personal identity is evidently at the core of our fourth collaboration.
