SLF 2026 Reexamines Stri Sasana Lontar and Balinese Women's Heritage
- 03 Jul 2026 10:39 WIB
- Voice of Indonesia
Poin Utama
- The Singaraja Literary Festival (SLF) 2026, held from July 3–5 in Buleleng, Bali, centers around the theme "Stri Sasana: The Energy of Cosmic Balance," inspired by the traditional Stri Sasana lontar manuscript.
- The three-day festival features 42 distinct programs, including literary discussions, workshops, public lectures, and cultural performances involving regional writers, academics, philologists, and practitioners.
RRI.CO.ID, Singaraja - The lontar manuscript Stri Sasana is the central inspiration for the Singaraja Literary Festival (SLF) 2026 held in Buleleng Regency, Bali. Under the theme Stri Sasana: The Energy of Cosmic Balance, organizers aim to encourage the public to reexamine Bali’s manuscript heritage as a forum for dialogue about women, tradition, and civilization.
Founder and director of SLF, Kadek Sonia Piscayanti, said Stri Sasana should not be interpreted solely as a set of rules about women. She noted the manuscript also contains values of resilience, wisdom, and the social role of women.
“This theme is not intended to place women as objects. Rather, we want to show that women have long been an essential part of the construction of knowledge and Balinese civilization,” she said at a press conference on Monday, 22 June 2026.
Sonia explained the festival does not aim to either glorify the manuscript’s contents in full or judge it by contemporary standards. Instead, SLF seeks to provide a space for critical discussion so that values still relevant today can be understood in the context of modern life.
Etymologically, stri means woman while sasana denotes teaching, rule, ethic, or moral foundation. Through this reading, the festival seeks to demonstrate that tradition also contains ideas about the dignity of women.
According to Sonia, in Balinese cosmology women are viewed as the energy of creation, preservation, and life’s continuity. For that reason, women’s leadership and voices play an important role in maintaining social, cultural, and environmental balance.
She added that the festival aims to show feminism is not necessarily at odds with tradition. On the contrary, tradition can be a source for reinterpreting egalitarian values present in society.
SLF 2026 will run from 3–5 July and feature 42 programs, including literary discussions, public lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and performances involving writers, academics, philologists, and cultural practitioners from across the region. (Annaila Azzahra-EN)
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