Kasongan Pottery Center

Kasongan is known as the Village of Pottery, located at the Southern area of Yogyakarta, at Bangunjiwo District of Kasihan. The area is approximately 4 kilometers from Bantul. The tourism village is a place that’s full of household products and crafts, mostly made of clay. The various forms of ceramic handicrafts with artistic motifs and design are the magnets that attract tourist, both local and foreign.
Aside from the various shops that sell different kinds of products, visitors are allowed to witness the process of making the products directly from the craftsmen who works there. Those who are interested in seeing the making of the products may visit a particular gallery that allows tourists to view. The processes are usually material kneading, shaping, drying (that takes about 3 days) and finally burning before the finishing or designing of the item using wall paint or roof-tile paint.

 

 

Kasongan has long been a center for pottery products and handicrafts ranging from jugs to rice pots, vases and ornaments. It was a noted painter Sapto Hudoyo who started to pick up the industry in the 1970s. Sapto started by introducing and teaching new skills to the inhibitants of the area and encouraged them to produce not only kitchen utensils but other products including ornaments with dragon and lion reliefs and other modifications that added value to the products.

Upon your enter at the village, two tall stone pillars stand strong on either side of the road, displaying the name of the village. Tourists will be warmly greeted by local inhabitants, if not the workers of each gallery. The gallery is usually a family business that is inhereted from generation to next generation, although employee recruitments may involve neighbors and people outside the family tree. There are approximately 600 people running the business at Kasongan and mostly are just home industries. The unique and attractive items that are produced at the village are also discovered by foreigners. In fact, Kasongan has been Bantul’s main foreign exchange earner, by exporting its products internationally to European and Asian countries mostly.

Despite the reknown state of the village at present ,  a few years ago Kasongan experienced a moment of disaster. It was the 2006 earthquake that hit Yogyakarta that made almost 2,500 people jobless and worse, the disactivated business of the Bantul Regency’s proud pottery production center for an indefinite amount of time.

It was fortunate that the local residents haven’t given up on the business and started to get back on their feet again after the disaster. Slowly but surely, the crafting industry started to pick up and receive positive responses from the market, although having experienced months of renovation. With several modifications and developments from the previous state before the earthquake, Kasongan produced more creative and varieties of products ranging from tables, chairs, ashtrays and statues. And ever since the waking up of the residents to build back their proud livelihood source, it has been a tourism site as much as it is their source of money making.