Imagine a place that brings to life The White Lotus, with a definite sprinkling of Nine Perfect Strangers and a smattering of the Eden Project. A little tiny bit of Neom and liberal dashes of installations and art playgrounds like Lightscape – and then wrap the whole thing up in a burgeoning project that was hatched from the rich imaginings of a Russian billionaire and tie it all together with ultra tight security. And that may give you an inkling of what it’s like to encounter Nuanu, one of the planet’s latest creative cities – established on the coast of Bali north-west of Denpasar and, while currently limited by its 44-hectare footprint, growing in stature and amenities every day.
In some quarters it is already a fully functioning playground for the well-heeled and well-favoured, with its Luna Beach Club thriving; while in other areas Nuanu is one big construction site – albeit one that is in a constant state of flux.
The Creative Cities network is an initiative of UNESCO, which has already anointed around 350 locations around the world for aligning with the brief of being: ‘a city placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of its development plan at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.’
Interestingly creative cities have their roots in Australia, first mentioned as an idea in 1988 when the then Victorian Secretary for Planning and Environment, David Yencken, published an article titled ‘The Creative City’ in the literary journal Meanjin, and delivered a keynote address to an Australia Council (now Creative Australia) seminar held in Melbourne. In that seminar he declared, “[The city] should be emotionally satisfying and stimulate creativity among its citizens.”
It has to be noted that not everyone is enamoured of the concept – there have been accusations that creative cities can be targeted at property developers and those looking to gentrify or upscale an area while ‘destroying local distinctiveness’. A particular criticism is that artists can be used cynically, to mask the gentrification and make a location appear more palatable and appealing – in a process known as ‘artwashing’.
Nuanu’s response
The team behind the developments at Nuana appear to be acutely aware of this criticism and are spruiking the development’s five pillars – education, arts and culture, living, health and wellness, and nature.
And while it’s very early days, there are certainly reasons to be optimistic that Sergey Solonin – the aforementioned billionaire and entrepreneur who now “only works with people [he] wants to hug” – may be genuinely creating a little touch of paradise in the Indonesian province that has long been the playground of Australians in particular, but is increasingly suffering the effects of too much tourism and struggling waste management programs.
The development is evolving around those foundational pillars – with a particular focus on sustaining and promoting local arts and creativity.
Outside of the art though, the nature of enterprise means that what is already available can feel a little arbitrary, and even surprising. For instance, who would travel to paradise expecting the first businesses they’d encounter would be an alpaca farm or a glass blowing studio?
Solonin’s business plan is directly related to his ‘embraceable you’ vocation. Which means that for a company or organisation to get access to a plot in Nuanu, their values and mission statements must align with those of the creative city.
Seriously serene?
It stands to reason then that one of the earliest established projects is the Lumeira spa, which is home to ‘the world’s largest wood-fired dome steam and sound healing room’, where one of the treatments entails lying down inside the blistering hot dome with your eyes closed while beatific folk beat you gently with bunches of eucalyptus leaves (again, it may sound like a practice plucked straight from a Nicole Kidman streaming special, but in truth it’s seriously addictive).
Hand in hand with wellness and lifestyle, Nuanu is placing a serious focus on sustainability. The facilities currently in use are limited, but you can see the intent with huge bags of recyclables split into such categories as plastic cups, metal, cans, hard plastic, plastic bottles etc. There is a vow to never fudge or lie about its waste management statistics, which is commendable enough, so presumably the claim that 78% of its solid waste was recycled in 2023 can be trusted. One of the businesses on-site, Phoenix [eco tech], is taking all that plastic waste and creating new products such as lamps and ergonomic stools. It’s all so new, it was in the process of having a company sign installed when ArtsHub visited.
Along with those alpacas, Nuanu is something of a dogs’ sanctuary, with all pooches vaccinated and sterilised before they’re allowed to call the city home. And when it comes to flora and fauna, there is a policy of not cutting down trees, but building with them and around them – which works particularly well with the treehouse guest rooms in the Oshom hotel. It certainly gives the architecture a unique appeal.
Trees aside, there is also a commitment to keep 70% of the land preserved as green space. There is also a vertical farm on-site, with Anna Konoplitskaya announced in May 2023 as the winner of the Vertical Farm Design Contest for her ‘Tree Of Life’ vertical farm design, based on the Tri-Hita-Karana (three causes to prosperity) Balinese wisdom.
“Tri-Hita-Karana promotes harmony among fellow human beings through communal cooperation and promoting compassion; harmony towards God and harmony with their environment, which strives to conserve nature and promote the sustainability and balance of the domain,” according to the competitions’s co-organiser iFarm.
Where to from here?
There is so much construction and so many ambitious plans for the city that it’s currently the sort of place you could visit again in a month and find radically altered. There are various developments in train of all sizes, with facilities for living, shopping and entertainment.
Nuana already has one school up and running, the Reception to Year 9 ProEd Global Elementary School (with the Senior School underway and tertiary facilities planned). With fees sitting at 170,000,000 rupiah (AU$16,000) a year for Years 7, 8 and 9, though, this is education for the newer comers rather than the locals.
Nuanu is again clearly aware of the optics of this, however, and the team is keen to stress the free art and craft lessons offered to all local children. And, indeed, it’s the artistic and creative elements of Nuanu that really stand out. We’ll dig deeper into those in the next article…
The writer travelled to Bali as a guest of Nuanu.
