Kupang
— — a harbour town the trade winds remember.
Not only on a wall.
“Capital of East Nusa Tenggara, set on a wide bay at the western tip of Timor where the Sawu and Timor seas meet. The waterfront looks across to Semau Island, the fishing fleets come in around dawn, and the limestone hills behind town hold the heat well past dark. Kupang has been a port since the Dutch built Fort Concordia in 1653, and it was the first land William Bligh reached after the Bounty mutiny. The streets keep that layered memory — Portuguese, Dutch, Rotenese, Sabu, Timorese — without making a museum of any of it. from the studio
Kupang, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Kupang is the capital and largest city of East Nusa Tenggara province, on the southwestern coast of West Timor. Roughly 440,000 people live in the urban area, making it the largest city on the island. The city sits on Kupang Bay, looking west across the strait to Semau Island, with the Timor Sea opening southward. It is closer to Darwin, Australia (around 690 km) than to Jakarta, and serves as the air and sea hub for the surrounding islands of Rote, Sabu and Alor.
Kupang sits in the savanna belt of eastern Indonesia, with a sharp wet and dry season instead of the steady wet of Java or Sumatra. The dry monsoon, from May to October, brings the southeasterlies off the Australian continent — clear, hot days and cool nights, the hillsides browning to gold. The wet season from December to March brings short heavy storms that green the country in days. Average daytime temperatures stay close to 30°C year through, with the hills above the bay catching whatever breeze the bay sends up.
Kupang's calendar has been a meeting calendar for four centuries. The Dutch East India Company established Fort Concordia here in 1653, holding it against the Portuguese based on the eastern half of Timor. In June 1789, William Bligh and eighteen loyal crew reached Kupang after a 6,700 km open-boat voyage from the mutiny on HMS Bounty. The annual Sail Komodo and Sail Sabu Raijua maritime festivals still call at Kupang harbour. Independence Day on 17 August fills the streets with sasando music, the local string instrument made from lontar palm.