The Legacy of Urban Sculpture in Yogyakarta

Urban sculptures constitute cultural heritage that connects material space, historical memory, and collective identity, yet their continuity is increasingly challenged by urbanization, tourism, spatial transformation, mobility, and digitalization. Existing scholarship has examined spatial memory, cultural governance, and cultural resilience largely as distinct dimensions, leaving insufficient explanation of how these processes interact within living urban monument systems. This study examines how spatial memory, cultural governance, and the transformation of cultural meaning collectively shape the resilience of urban sculpture heritage in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Using a qualitative case study, the research integrates field observation, spatial mapping, visual documentation, historical archives, policy documents, digital media, and semi-structured interviews with ten Millennials and Generation Z informants. Data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis and triangulation. Findings show that urban sculptures operate as socio-spatial memory infrastructure through spatial configuration, historical narratives, landmark functions, symbolic representation, and everyday interaction. Their continuity is institutionally supported through cultural regulation, spatial planning, legitimization, conservation, and community participation, while cultural meaning is sustained through intergenerational reinterpretation, spatial adaptation, tourism recontextualization, and digital reproduction. Based on these interconnected processes, the study proposes Dynamic Monumental Resilience, conceptualizing monument sustainability as the capacity to maintain cultural identity through continuous reinterpretation, recontextualization, and reproduction of meaning across changing social contexts.