Indonesia is a very interesting country in terms of aquascaping. If you take a look at the IAPLC history of Indonesia in the last 10 years, you may have the impression that Indonesian scapers only "awaken" 5-6 years ago and that, is a misleading impression which is not entirely true. In fact, aquascaping has been popular in Indonesia for a long time and they have talented scapers in earlier days too. However, the awareness of participating in international aquascaping competition only started in recent years.
One thing we know for sure though, Indonesian is on the rise in the international competition scenes - the 10 years IAPLC graph is self explanatory. We have seen Indonesian scapers producing breathtakingly beautiful layouts in aquascaping contest around the world - including IAPLC. They have a big group of top scapers in their prime and even a bigger group of raw talents waiting to breakout! Their result is especially eyes catching in the last 3 years...achieving an average ranking as good as 30, that is worthy of top 5 in the nations ranking! Last year we saw a slight dip in the average ranking from Indonesia - but definitely not due to a dip in their performance, in general, 2018 result reflects a slight diversion of the Indonesian scapers' attention to other international contest - they are doing very well in many other contests and that unavoidably has affected their work for IAPLC. What will happen in 2019? Will they shift back their focus to IAPLC? rumour has it......THEY ARE BACK!!!!!!
Aquascaping style in Indonesia is predominantly Forest...nothing else but forest!! This may have something to do with the wealth of driftwood resources and the abundant of green atmosphere as inspirations in their country! Indonesian forest style aquascaping has their very own identity - compact, full of details with unrivalled craftsmanship. The Indonesian's skill in terms of preparing wooden hardscape is meticulous and to a certain extend - painstaking! The amount of patience, passion and skills needed is unmatched anywhere else in the world!!
Strengths and Weaknesses
The main strengths in Indonesian aquascaping can be summarised in 3 areas:
1) live scaping contest - if there is an international live tank set up contest, Indonesia could probably win all of the available prizes, hands down.
2) amazing craftsmanship in harscape - as mentioned earlier.
3) a large pool of passionate raw talents - the keywords here are: passionate and raw! The amount of commitment and passions displayed by the young Indonesian scapers is something you dont get to see anywhere else in the world. 200 tanks in their local live contest - now go chew and digest this number. 😊
However, these 3 strengths, if they are not being used or nurtured in the right way, may become the weaknesses that could hinder their progress in the international contest such as IAPLC. As the live setup contest culture in Indonesia is so strong and well developed, Indonesian scapers tend to use similar concept to approach photo contest, as a result, we often see tanks that are lacking of plant health and variety that causes immatured tanks, tanks that did not go through the passage of time and look artificial. Similarly, their unrivalled strength in the hardscape craftsmanship is often giving an over-elaborated and congested feeling to their work - they focus too much on hardscape. As for the raw talents that they are blessed with, lacking of proper guidance and fundamental aquascaping culture may result in wanting an express way to success that may in turn causing sustainability issue if success is not attainable in short term.
In general, we still believe that Indonesia will be a future powerhouse in the world of aquascaping - if they are not already one now! Their strengths are outweighting the potential weaknesses by a large margin and it is just a matter of time, we believe sooner rather than later, Indonesia will be standing at the top of aquascaping world! 2019 could give us a glimpse of this prediction!
How about some Samba next?
Author: IAPLC Nations Challenge
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