Rainbow Village and Blue Village, Malang District Indonesia. Data acquired by Sentinel-2 on the 18th September 2019. Data courtesy of ESA/Copernicus.
Flicking around the TV channels on Friday night we heard the words ‘easily recognisable even from satellite images’. So, of course, we stopped and watched a fantastic Asia Insight report on Indonesia’s Rainbow Village on the NHK World Japan channel, and as soon it finished we headed to the Sentinel-Hub to see if we can really see if from and space ….. and you can!
Malang City, home to almost 900,000 people, on the island of East Java in Indonesia is made up of a number of districts and many slums. One these areas, the Jodipan neighbourhood, was the dirtiest of the Malang slums and the local government had decided to relocate the whole village as the area as so poor. However, in March 2016 a group of eight students from Muhammadiyah University of Malang were asked to come up with a project to solve local issues, and their idea was to add colour to the houses of Jodipan to brighten up the village. It can just about be made out to the right of centre as strips of colours in this zoomed-in Sentinel-2 image.
They got a local paint supplier on board who believed in social change and agreed to give the paint for free, and then they pitched their idea to the village who all agreed to go ahead. In May 2016, around thirty artists got together and started painting the houses in bright vivid colours, and they painted the houses like a rainbow which can be seen in the centre of the image at the top. In four months, one hundred and fifteen houses had been painted, and to everyone’s surprise, people began to start coming to the village.
With the help of the paint company, they found artists to come and paint bright murals on the walls of the houses, which attracted even more visitors. The residents embraced their new tourist industry and began setting up stalls selling food, drinks and souvenirs; whilst others got jobs as parking attendants or helping keep the area clean and tidy. They have also added props such as frames, parasols and ribbons to the streets making it the perfect place for Instagram shots!
There is an entry fee, equivalent to twenty US cents, and instead of a ticket visitors receive a little mascot, again made by the residents, and the profits from these fees are shared within the village.
The murals are changed, and the houses retouched, regularly. As a result, the village is no longer considered a slum and the local government have dropped their relocation plans. It is a bright vibrant place and the people have jobs, the environment has improved dramatically and they are learning languages to interact with their visitors!
Malang, Indonesia. Data acquired by Sentinel-2 on the 18th September 2019. Data courtesy of ESA/Copernicus.
Following the success of Jodipan, on the opposite riverbank, Tridi began their own painting project. Whilst they maintained the vibrant colours, they didn’t follow the rainbow pattern of Jodipan. Instead, they have a street full of interactive trick art – again brilliant for social media. Tridi can be seen below Jodpian in the image.
More visible on this image, just to the left of centre, is the so-called Blue Village. It is five hundred houses that have all been painted the blue of the local football team, Arema FC, who play in the Indonesian Super League. The walls are adorned with images of the lion, which is the teams’ mascot and attracts fans from all over the country.
This seems a great way of revitalising an area, giving it a new and vibrant identity. There seem lots of places in this country where this might be worth a try too! One area we know that does a similar thing is Totterdown in Bristol where a lot of the houses are painted in pastel colours. It’s an area south of the River Avon on the hillside that is easily visible from the train, but less so from space as the rooves are not painted.
