Festival Riung Gunung Bandung

Festival Riung Gunung Bandung is a multidisciplinary arts and culture festival that reactivates Indonesia’s spice heritage as a living narrative of identity, knowledge, and creativity. Held in Tahura Bandung, the festival brings together culinary showcases, traditional herbal wisdom, cultural performances, and public discussions — creating an immersive platform that connects history, community, and contemporary cultural expression.

ROLE

Creative Director, Brand Identity Designer, Editorial Designer

PROJECT DATE

22-23 February 2025

THE BRIEF

Design and lead the creative direction for a two-day cultural festival celebrating the spice heritage, biodiversity, and community networks of Bandung's mountainous highlands — to be held at Tahura Ir. H. Djuanda in February 2025.

The festival needed to be culturally credible, visually distinctive, and compelling enough to secure national government funding while attracting a broad public audience.

PROBLEM

What Needed Solving

The Riung Gunung Bandung communities — farmers, herbalists, craftspeople, cultural practitioners — were rich in knowledge and practice, but invisible to the wider public and undervalued economically.

DESIGN INTENT

The Creative Direction

Make the festival feel grown, not designed. Every visual and programmatic decision had to carry the texture of the region — volcanic soil colours, botanical warmth, Sundanese language, the sensory richness of spice.

The theme "Ramu Saji Rempah Riung Gunung Bandung – Pasisian Leuweung" was chosen to anchor the entire identity in place, practice, and local language — signalling authenticity to both community insiders and curious outsiders.

INSIGHT

The Underlying Truth

People don't attend a cultural festival for information — they attend for feeling. The feeling of belonging to something larger, of discovering something real, of experiencing culture as alive rather than archived.

This meant the spice market had to be curated, not just filled. The music had to be selected for cultural coherence. The talkshows had to feel like conversations, not lectures. Every element needed to carry the same warmth as the communities it represented.

OUTCOME

What the Creative Direction Delivered

A fully realised festival identity — from logo and colour system to stage design, sponsor proposal, and content strategy — that successfully united 500 performers, 50 cultural organisations, and 8 community partners under a single coherent narrative. The festival attracted 2,000+ participants on-site and 5,000+ viewers through livestream and podcast, and secured national institutional support from Kemendikbud RI, Dana Indonesiana, and LPDP.