ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development of community art and media in Indonesia. It analyses the similarities and differences with earlier genres with an explicit participatory agenda, including certain forms of LEKRA literature and art of the 1950s and 1960s; 'people's theatre' since the 1970s; and 'conscientisation art' since the 1980s. The chapter then explains the various initiatives of media activists in the village of Timbulharjo, Central Java, as an example of contemporary community media. It demonstrates how facilitators and practitioners have tried to solve some of these problems through the exploration of alternative art and media networks, formats and content. Community media facilitators such as Puskat have not only worked with local groups, but also trained NGOs to combine their development programmes with theatrical and other cultural techniques for informal education and social conscientisation. Indonesian artists have applied Freire's idea of conscientisation not only to theatre, but also to drawing, installation and other visual art.
