Sustainable Cities and Communities

UNESA records and preserves intangible cultural heritage across East Java

Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA) delivers projects that record and preserve intangible cultural heritage at the local/regional and national tiers, through student placements and lecturer-led training that document, digitise or teach folklore, tradition, language and knowledge in Sidoarjo, Sumenep, Mojokerto, Ponorogo and East Java's provincial archive during 2025 and 2026, and through a design project supporting recognition of Reog Ponorogo as national and UNESCO-listed intangible heritage, and through a folk-instrumental ensemble that carried Indonesian music to an international festival in 2025.

Local or regional cultural heritage

Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA) records and digitises local intangible cultural heritage through a student placement inside a district government's own culture office. Communication Science student Mochammad Daky Mameru Alam interned at the Sidoarjo Regency Education and Culture Office's Culture and Language Development Division, reported in June 2026, supporting its management of Sidoarjo's Warisan Budaya Tak Benda (intangible cultural heritage, WBTB) records. He helped collect and digitise cultural data, ranging from Objects of Cultural Advancement and WBTB to the creative-culture economy, cultural facilities, cultural human resources, traditional dress and cultural events, for the East Java Culture and Tourism Office's 'Daksa Budaya' information system, and researched and compiled the supporting documentation for two WBTB nominations, the Tari Remo Munali Patah dance and the Wayang Kulit Gagrak Porongan shadow-puppet style, through literature study, field observation and interviews with culture bearers (S1 llmu Komunikasi, 2026).

UNESA also places students inside a regency museum to document and explain its heritage to visiting schoolchildren. Communication Science student Diva interned at the Museum Keraton Sumenep, run by the Sumenep Regency Office of Culture, Youth, Sport and Tourism, from August to December 2025. She helped coordinate and document the museum's cultural events and, as an educational-tour guide, explained the palace building's history, its rooms' functions and the cultural values in its collection to visiting school groups (S1 llmu Komunikasi, 2025).

UNESA's history and design programmes both record and present Majapahit-era heritage in Mojokerto. In September 2026 History Education students interned at the East Java Cultural Heritage Preservation Office (Balai Pelestarian Kebudayaan Jawa Timur) in Trowulan, taking part in rescue excavation, archive management and library-collection care, and produced thematic infographics and short fun-fact videos from their analysis of local cultural potential (S1 Pendidikan Sejarah, 2026b). In the same month a second History Education group interned at the Museum Majapahit in Trowulan, where they wrote guided-visit booklets pitched separately at junior-high and senior-high visitors to make museum tours more interactive (S1 Pendidikan Sejarah, 2026a). Earlier, in March 2026, Graphic Design student Muhammad Habib Al Muqsith redesigned the storyline and information labels for the 'Ruang Keseharian Majapahit' (Majapahit Daily Life Room) at the Majapahit Information Management Unit (PIM) in Mojokerto Regency, adding a structured storyline and readable artefact labels for museum visitors (D4 Desain Grafis, 2026a).

UNESA's postgraduate Arts and Culture Education programme trains schoolteachers to carry Ponorogo's heritage into the classroom. On 12 and 13 August 2026 its community-service team, led by Prof. Dr. Trisakti, ran a two-day training for 30 junior-high arts teachers from Ponorogo Regency's Arts and Culture Teachers' Working Group (MGMP Seni Budaya) on writing ISBN-registered teaching materials drawn from Ponorogo's own heritage, the Babad Ponorogo chronicle, the figure of Batoro Katong, the Tegalsari intellectual centre, Reog Ponorogo and the Grebeg Suro festival (Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni, 2026).

UNESA's History Education programme records and republishes regional folklore with a provincial government archive. From 4 August to 1 September 2026, five students ran the Dongeng Online storytelling project with the East Java Provincial Library and Archives Office (Dinas Perpustakaan dan Kearsipan Provinsi Jawa Timur), producing four weekly audio-visual episodes on Instagram and TikTok that retold the folk tales Cindelaras, Suwidak Loro, Malin Kundang and the Legend of Pulau Senua, each curated and verified with the office beforehand (S1 Pendidikan Sejarah, 2026c).

National cultural heritage

Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA) also supports the preservation of a nationally and UNESCO-recognised intangible heritage. In March 2026 Graphic Design student Lukman Abdul Hakim produced a social-media preservation campaign, 'Reog di Panggung Media Sosial,' for the Ponorogo Art Council, aimed at keeping Reog Ponorogo, catalogued as Indonesia's intangible cultural heritage and inscribed on UNESCO's list, relevant to younger audiences. The campaign packaged Reog's philosophical values into short videos, detailed infographics and framed posters for the council's own use (D4 Desain Grafis, 2026b).

UNESA's music students and lecturers also carry Indonesian folk music to international stages. From 17 to 19 January 2025 Svara Pertiwi, a group of students and lecturers of the Music programme (S1 Musik) in the Unesa Symphony Orchestra student club, won the gold medal and the Champion title in the Ensemble Folks Instrumental category of the Asia Students Art Festival (ASAF) 2025 in Hong Kong (Universitas Negeri Surabaya, 2025a). The festival, held every year by First Education Group Hong Kong, invites entrants to perform western and eastern instruments, among them Indonesia's; the group prepared for three months after passing the online preliminary round in October 2024, and its win earned it an invitation to the festival's 10th Anniversary Winner Showcase at the Royal College of Music in London. On 19 and 20 September 2025 two wind-section members of the same orchestra, from the Music programme and the Master's programme in Arts and Culture Education, won the saxophone and trumpet categories of the Champs Universal Music Competition 2025 at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney, and one was named Champion of Champions with a scholarship at the institute (Universitas Negeri Surabaya, 2025b).