Grafis Nusantara: a time machine through stickers and labels

Written by Haiza Putti | Read in Indonesian

Who says stickers are just things that make kids happy? Or meaningless decorations on items around us, like laptops and tumblers? For a collective called Grafis Nusantara, vintage stickers and labels have become a time machine to explore Indonesia’s visual culture.

“Indonesian ephemera collections deserve to be used as a primary source for further research — offering a unique window into past culture.” – Claudia Novreica, writer and researcher for Grafis Nusantara.

That's how Grafis Nusantara (GN) opens an introduction about their collective which collects visuals that are present in everyday life, from cigarette packaging to sexy pictures of stiker kota (urban stickers)–adopted from "Stiker Kota" (2008) published by ruangrupa–which reflect the rich vernacular visual that is often “ignored, forgotten, even underestimated” by mainstream graphic design narratives.

The word “ephemera” can be interpreted as memorabilia that was enjoyed in a short period of time. Maurice Rickards, the founder of The Ephemera Society, further interpreted this word as "a document of everyday life, like an object that describes the atmosphere of the past in a way that cannot be done through formal records".

GN chose ephemera as a depiction of the resilience of vintage graphic products that are full of important narratives from socio-cultural conditions and the development of design in Indonesia, in navigating the passage of time.

However, who is Grafis Nusantara? What kind of Indonesian vintage stickers and labels did it collect? And how does it affect the archiving of graphic design products in Indonesia?

Starting from a hobby, evolved to become Grafis Nusantara

Grafis Nusantara is a collective initiated by a graphic designer and illustrator from South Kalimantan, Rakhmat Jaka Perkasa. Jaka started collecting vintage stickers and labels in the middle of his university days in 2013. At that time, as he was having trouble finding vintage “everyday” visual references on the Internet, Jaka started exploring the corners of various markets in Yogyakarta, where he studied, to collect stickers and labels from the past.

After his archive started to pile up, he slowly digitised them and shared them via Instagram. "So people can enjoy them as a reference (design) or for nostalgia. In the end, I scanned them manually, alone, and uploaded them to Instagram," Jaka told TFR.

In 2019, the name Grafis Nusantara was created. It first made its presence known on Instagram, sharing every visual it found. A year later, with the arrival of Hendri Siman (project manager) and Claudia Novreica (writer and researcher), and with the support from Evan Wijaya of the design studio Kamengski, the GN website, which houses the archive of Indonesia’s labels and stickers, went live.

Overall, GN’s archive comprises collectibles made between the 70s and 90s, with distinct visuals, themes and functionality that are unique to each other. The stickers are divided into several categories, such as erotic, cartoons, religion, illustrated texts and classic texts. Meanwhile, labels are classified into food and beverage, health, textile, cigarette and tea.

Another development carried out by GN releasing a zine–short for magazine or fanzine, an independent publication–entitled “Grafis Nusantara Vol. 01” (2022) which featured a collection of archives, accompanied by additional stickers, posters and postcards. The collective also actively publishes its works through its participation in several exhibitions, such as the 12th Indonesian Contemporary Art and Design (ICAD) and the 2022 Kuala Lumpur Art Book Fair.

About vintage stickers and labels: Visual cultural products that mark the upheavals of the times

Although it is not clear since when the production of ephemera stickers began in Indonesia, “Stiker Kota” stated that they became popular at least since the 1970s. They became a mass product that is close to everyday life, "absorbing the desires of city residents and their various problems and displaying them". In addition, urban stickers "commercialise the image that has been and is currently taking place in urban society, and because of that it is temporary (ephemera)".

Most of the stickers are posted in the corners of a city, public transportation such as angkot, bemo and auto rickshaws, mosque doors, as well as shop windows. Behind their visual splendour and mostly witty text, urban stickers play the role of communicating the hopes and anxieties of living in a big city.

In the same article, ruangrupa classified sticker consumers into two categories, namely free but polite, i.e. consumers who are fond of stickers with religious slogans, and the liberals who try to express themselves through erotic expressions and visuals and sometimes use offensive language.

Now, where does the inspiration behind the random urban stickers come from? Apparently, ruangrupa found that one of the main producers of urban stickers comes from Pakisaji village in Malang regency, East Java. Their sticker designs are done by illustrators who imagine cities. The inspiration comes from realtors who absorb the trends and expectations of consumers in the city. Their popularity drove the growth of sticker manufacturers, expanding to Bandung, Purwokerto, Solo and Cirebon.

Jaka told TFR, "For example, in that era there was a hit film, so the text (on the sticker) was inspired by the title of the film, that’s why the text on the sticker was random." "Stiker Kota" shared a similar testament, that the development of information technology through television, the Internet and the mass media after the Reformasi of 1998 also contributed to the development in the visual and text repertoire of stickers circulating in the market. The results of this observation can be clearly seen in several Grafis Nusantara sticker collections which show a blend of popular culture and local slogans.

Regarding the development of visuals and brand names of vintage labels, Hendri Siman said that through the GN archives, he realised how past visual creations had a style that was "really chill". They often juxtaposed contrasting visuals and text, which are not always relevant to the product type, such as “rokok cap batman” (Batman cigarettes). On the other hand, the labels collected by GN mostly come from defunct brands.

More relaxed practices, fulfilling the thirst for archiving Indonesian graphic designs

Several years ago, DGI Press published a book entitled “Indonesian Graphic Design in the World Graphic Design Center (DGIDPDGD)” (2015) volume 1 written by its founder, Hanny Kardinata. In the introduction, Hanny said humbly that the archiving of graphic design development was intended to "complete the spirit of bringing history closer to the younger generation–the torch bearers of the graphic design movement in Indonesia".

The importance of recording–archiving–for the development of Indonesian graphic design was also conveyed by Andriew Budiman, visual and graphic director of C2O and Ayorek!, in his response to Hanny's writing in "DGIDPDGD" which was published on dgi.or.id. Andrew said it is common knowledge that the practice of archiving, especially in graphic design, "is like walking down a lonely road".

Andriew said the stigma that archiving history is the work of the old people and the young are only tasked with creating is the source of the lack of recorded history of design in Indonesia. "At least as a younger generation we can initiate activities that involve the general public in the process of studying the history of graphic design together in a more relaxed way," Andriew proposed in his writing.

The anxiety of these senior designers and reviewers seems to show how the presence of Grafis Nusantara in the past few years has given birth to hope about non-conventional archiving; more specifically, digital archives. This assumption is also reflected in the invitation for GN to be a guest in the “It's All Graphic 2022” discussion held by the Wim Crouwel Institute at Pakhuis de Zwijger (the Netherlands), which highlighted GN's practice as an effort to “intervene with the conventional–institutionalised–archiving that is patriarchal and often trapped in colonial views”.

What's more, Grafis Nusantara does not work alone in archiving. In addition to collecting stickers and labels from collectors in various regions, through a method known as social curation, Grafis Nusantara opens opportunities for anyone to register their archives on its website, which can then be enjoyed by the wider public.