Room4Dessert Academy 2023

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The Room4Dessert Academy is an incredible initiative from Chef Will Goldfarb and the R4D team to share their knowledge, techniques, and recipes with students from around the world. This year has had four Pastry Intensives. We’re proud to provide behind-the-scenes support for the Academy, including managing registration, student liaison, design support for learning materials and excursions.

Photo by nyimas laulA

Photo by Nyimas laulA

In the words of Chef Will: The R4D Academy has been sharing the vision of restoring community through food for three years now. Following in the footsteps of its big sister Room4Dessert, the Academy has grown from a pastry only program, to include classes in all areas, from Zero Waste Cooking, to Miyawaki Forest Design, to Rustic Urban Thai, featuring our friends and experts from all over the world. At the same time, we don’t forget where we came from and what we know, which is to make great desserts and share our methods with the world.

With that in mind, we are proud to present our fourth edition of Pastry Intensives, focusing on the key techniques that make R4D a mecca for not only dessert, but culinary enthusiasts from across the globe. Starting in September, a week long feature on Ice Cream and Frozen Treats, is complemented by inside info on Creams and Mousses. We will walk you through all the steps to be able to make the best desserts in the world, right in your own home or restaurant. Designed for students of all levels, each class will drill down on the fundamentals and include insight into the ingredients, techniques and delivery of R4D’s iconic dishes.

Next up, in October, we are Cooking with Fire, and sharing the secrets of our Sauces, Gelees and Tropical Fruit cookery. November rain brings Fun with Cakes and Doughs. And December we present Great Garnishes and Finishing Touches. Pass through all four and you will have completed a Master’s in plated dessert making.

Each week this autumn, features a trip to a different producer - the backbone of the R4D universe. From salt making to cocoa plantations, our favourite Balinese artisans and craftspeople have got you covered. Step into our world. You will never see dessert in the same way again.

The excursions have taken us to some incredible spaces and places, diving deep into Balinese produce, the relationships between clay and food, farmer and chef, makers and consumers.


Art & Sugar: events at Powder Room by Room4Dessert

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Celebrating creativity in all its forms. We’ve been programming at the beautiful Powder Room for half a year now and love watching the relationships grow between different artists, attendees and the host. No matter what activity or art form it always ends with a sweet treat from The Powder Room ovens.

One of our favorite moments of magic was when Art Toy master Uncle Twis held a workshop at Powder Room and reimagined the Red Choux and Bombolini.

We then jumped into the world of plant parents with a Plant Swap and Houseplant Workshop led by Thousands Bloom. The incredible garden team of Room4Dessert brought some of their precious babies to swap with attendees too.

Gusti Dalem x Powder Room: Afternoon Tea #005

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The fifth afternoon tea at Powder Room by Room4Dessert was an afternoon covered in clay! The front room of Powder Room was transformed into a ceramics studio complete with two wheels! The teacher was Gusti Dalem, a young Balinese ceramic artist from Gianyar.

As always, the class ended with an amazing afternoon tea, including the famous papaya jamon sandwiches and mini bomboloni.

Who is Gusti?

Gusti began his ceramics practice at the age of 16, initially based on the advice of his parents who had already mastered the art of Balinese pottery. Gusti says ceramics is interesting because the process is very dependent on the emotional control of the creator.

He began actively conducting experiments on raw materials found in Balinese nature that can be used as glazes, including research on Balinese sand formulations.

His ceramic works highlight the fragile character and the character of Balinese clay as a whole. His ceramics studio is open to the public year round and offers regular classes.


Gumi Cards: a playing card deck featuring Balinese flora and fauna

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Our fourth game product is a playing card deck featuring line drawings of Balinese flora and fauna. As you play, find lotus flowers, dragonflies, squirrels, bats, banana flower blossoms and ferns representing each suit. Each Gumi Bali deck comes with a little booklet explaining the meaning behind the cards and the scientific names of all the species.

Gumi, meaning "earth" in Balinese, captures the essence of these playing cards. Each card showcases line ink drawings, hand drawn by Rumantra, a talented artist and passionate plant enthusiast based in Ubud, Bali. Rumantra's illustrations bring to life the vibrant flora and fauna of the island.

Each card was based on an original ink illustration by Rully Rumantra, seen here on display at Powder Room in Bali.

Gumi also has an accompanying coloring in book featuring all the illustrations, and hand screen-printed tote bags and t-shirts.

Cinta Bumi Artisans x Powder Room: Afternoon Tea #004

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The 4th art afternoon tea was a color explosion!

Powder Room by R4D hosted Novieta Tourisia from Cinta Bumi Artisans and her natural ink workshop. The guests co-created with nature and explored mark making with inks made from Indonesian plants before enjoying the afternoon tea perfected by Powder Room.

Cinta Bumi Artisans is a studio led by Novieta Tourisia that works with ecoprints and botanical colors on paper and cloth. Each dye comes from nature and is fully traceable. Cinta Bumi Artisans believes everything that has made us the way we are now was established by our ancestors. And we have the ability to choose their wisdom to guide us in the way we live today.

Live drawing with Urban Sketchers in Bali

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Urban Sketchers is a global community of sketchers dedicated to the practice of on-location drawing. We’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Urban Sketchers Bali for Ubud Open Studios and also hosting a meet-up at Powder Room by Room4Dessert. The range of styles and perspectives of the members is an amazing thing to watch as they live sketch.

“for all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities where they live and visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner… always on location, not from photos or memory.”

The Sketches from Powder Room

The sketches from Ubud Open Studios 2023

Download Elami’s Design Guide to Ubud

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If you’re looking to experience Ubud through design eyes, we have a guide for you.

Ubud is our hometown and we are fortunate to know many of the amazing creatives making beautiful spaces for people to enjoy.

This is our curated list and includes places we always take friends and family who are visiting. Think art, culture, hidden local gems, incredible views & architecture, artisan products, workshops, and more.

 

How did we choose?

These are all places and experiences that we like to go to ourselves. They are often are located in stunning places with great architecture or views, have good design (interiors, graphics, products), and are worth the money. They are curated with an eye for Bali made or designed with respect to our island home, and often have a connection to local artists and artisans.

Who’s curating the guide?

Elami Productions—producers of Ubud Open Studios, TEDxUbud, and many events and brand experiences in Bali.

What you get:

For Rp100,000 (~$7), you can download The Design Guide to Ubud and add the address pins directly to your Google Maps (download it to use offline).

Our notes are attached to each location explaining why we chose it and what you can’t miss about each pin.

Forever access. We promise to keep it updated with new places.

Rumantra x Powder Room: Afternoon Tea #003

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Continuing with the third afternoon tea party, Powder Room by R4D hosted Rully from Rumantra and his Botanical Line Drawing workshop. An afternoon full of botanical fun and channeling love for plants on paper.

The afternoon tea was paired with teas by Chon Tea, including a Yabukita aracha sencha harvested this spring, blended beautifully with sakura petals that are grown surrounding the tea plantation.

A running list of Ubud and Bali art events in 2023

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A list of exhibitions and events from our favorite artists and galleries across the island. We will keep updating so the most recent event posters will be at the top so you can check what’s happening right now. For details we suggest heading to the Instagrams of each artist and venue.

July 2023

June 2023

Arta Derau’s new art space

Art Moments Bali with DEvFto printmaking institute

The students of Made Griyawan and studio gelombang as part of Ubud Food Festival

Purga ArtSpace (curated by Wicitra Pradnyaratih)

A collaboration between desa and non frasa

ArtNiluh x Powder Room: Afternoon Tea #002

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ArtNiluh by Niluh Pangestu’s recent workshop at Powder Room by Room4Dessert was an afternoon of creativity and good food.

We’ve been so happy to work with Niluh for many years now, collaborating on Elami boxes, a project for an Uluwatu hotel, and for Toko Elami with her beautiful scarves. She’s an amazing Balinese creative and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for her.

Niluh’s work often delves into the world of Balinese women and mythology and you can easily get lost in the details of her pieces.

A linocut is a relief print produced in a manner similar to a woodcut but that uses linoleum as the surface into which the design is cut and printed from.

She led the 12 people through the process of creating and carving their own linocut pieces and then printing them at Powder Room, a new candy shop by Room4Dessert in Ubud.

Arta Derau Prints: a new Ubud art space

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The Elami and Co team headed into the far north of Gianyar to visit the brand new Arta Derau Prints. Co-founders and established artists Sekarputi and Agugn have created the space to be an artist’s residency, exhibition gallery, print-making studio and all round creative compound. Such an unusual and much needed vision for the arts in Ubud. Thank you to the team for having us visit! Can’t wait to see what beautiful things start to happen at Arta Derau Prints over the first year.

About the founders

Sekarputi Sidhiawati is a visual artist who focuses on stories about the empowerment of women to give them and herself the drive to continue working. She mainly works with ceramic, a material that represents domesticity and women in general.

She was born in Jakarta in 1986 and completed her formal education at the Faculty of Art and Design ITB-Ceramic Art studio. She is now known as the founder of the studio Arta Derau, while consistently working in the art world. After working in Bandung, in 2018 she moved to Bali to expand her ceramic studio business. With a focus on women-related issues, Puti is a finalist of several fine art awards such as the Soemardja Art Award (2010) and the Bandung Contemporary Art Award 2013. She has joined several prestigious exhibitions include Jakarta Contemporary Ceramic Biennale, National Gallery of Indonesia (2014); Temperature Affect, Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics Jakarta (2017); Manifesto, National Gallery of Indonesia (2017); Termasuk, Darren Knight Gallery Australia (2018); Southern Constellations: The Poetics of the Non-Aligned, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljublana-Slovenia (2019).

Agugn is a graphic artist who experiments with traditional printing techniques like linocut and woodcut. Since his debut exhibit in 2013, his works have been showcased globally, including NY, Paris, and Tokyo.

Get to Know: Rumantra—illustrator, designer & plantsman

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Rumantra is hard to introduce, a person with many deep loves and multiple projects always going on. People’s eyes tend to get very big once you introduce him and run through the scope of his activities. We asked our favorite multipotentialite some hard-hitting questions….

You wear so many hats, tell us about them all.

Creative Director & Owner at Rumantra, Plant Hoarder at Thousands Bloom, Loyal Servant of Toean Moeda Kanda, Teacher & Founder at Melajah Mandiri (Free Creative Entrepreneurship School for Balinese), Production & Curator at Elami & Co

What’s your favorite plant? Answer quickly!

Musa ‘Little Prince’, the tiniest banana tree in the world!

What’s a plant that everyone should know about and why?

OMG, it's a species of Pitcher plant (Nephentes rajah). It is a carnivorous plant that is able to eat not only insects, but also lizards, small mammals, and even bats! BUT BUT BUT that's not the craziest part, the craziest part is it has this (allegedly) mutual symbiosis with tree shrew, so this plant produces some sort of nectar and attracts tree shrews and when the shrew consumes it it works as a laxative that forces the shrew to poop right into the pitcher. This plant then digests it, just like a multivitamin. Nonbotanist people named this plant the toilet plant.

What do you wish you’d grown up to be?

Biologist! Go on an adventure to the Amazon rainforest, finding new species, studying plants and animals, maybe finding Eldorado?

How has your art practice changed over time?

I was the weirdo in art class back in school, never getting a good grade because my teacher said it was too weird. Then as my interest in biology developed, I got more and more interested in scientific illustration.

Drawing to me is like studying, observing, and even dissecting species of flora & fauna. Fantasizing about being a biologist in a lab but with pencils, pens, and paper instead of creepy knives and lab stuff.

How would you describe your drawing style?

It's a mix of etching, line art and decorative with a drop or two of art nouveau/deco.

Besides art and plants, what else keeps you engaged/enraged?

Animals, music, cultures & tradition, weird geeky stuff, street food and Beyonce.

And finally… what brings you joy working in the Elami team?

I mean there are no crazy new age shitty people here so that's good.

Elami just reeks of creativity which I love, so much room to experiment in creativity like for example decorating a restaurant with moss, live crickets, fish nets, lost flip flops from the beach and LIVE SNAKES!

This office also provides great snacks!







Artist Illustrated RSV Helmets for Ubud Open Studios

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One of our favorite details from Ubud Open Studios was this collaboration between our sponsor RSV Helmets and three studios joining the event.

A different RSV Helmets model was given to Aswino Aji of Sika Gallery, Sekarputi of Arta Derau and Bagus Ari Maruta of Purga Art Space, each with their wildly unique and distinctive styles. They took two weeks to paint the helmets and the final results were amazing. You could even say traffic stopping…

The Afternoon Tea Series at Powder Room by Room4Dessert

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Room4Dessert is ready to launch its newest family member, Powder Room.

Powder Room is the neighborhood candy store, re-imagined. Filled with artisanal candies and sweet treats that bring nostalgia made from local ingredients, healthy alternative sugars and zero added preservatives or ingredients we all can't ever pronounce.

We’re excited to be working with the R4D team again to create a series of afternoon teas featuring Ubud artists, incredible food, and a chance to gather around the long table in the beautiful space that is Powder Room.

The first event is with the creatrix of Arta Derau, Sekarputi.

Spend your Saturday afternoon with us, let your creativity flow drawing the perfect cup design together with Sekarputi from Arta Derau. Powder Room by R4D will be taking care of you afterwards, serving our new lines of best sweets to be paired with the great tisanes from Made Tea.