Exploring Maritime Art toward the Appreciation of Coastal Literacy

This paper aims to show appreciation of maritime artworks. There is much global literature on art appreciation but only a few foci on maritime art appreciation. Filling the vacancy requires the study of how the community or public values maritime artworks in the context of the coastal community’s literacy. This article presents the results of maritime art appreciation through Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The participants included academicians, government officials, artists, creators, community, kiyai, and students. The maritime artworks appreciated were “Segara Garam’ and “Tasbih Pesisir” as natural and virtual artworks. Respondents’ insight, knowledge, and experience showed varied perceptions. Respondents with maritime culture backgrounds were quite expressive in expressing the importance of the coastal community’s local wisdom values, while respondents without maritime culture backgrounds paid more attention to artistic and aesthetic aspects instead of to meaning. Appreciation experience showed the importance of perception of maritime art in actualizing local genius. Maritime art appreciation was performed to improve people’s awareness of strengthening maritime culture literacy. Sociocultural differences influenced how they appreciated and produced maritime culture knowledge maritime culture. Respondents’ cognition and affective abilities show varied interpretations, perceptions, and definitions of art values.