Niko dan Rahasia Bola Empu Kampung Sewu (Niko and the Secret of the Empu Mud Ball of Kampung Sewu) is a comic inspired by the traditional Empu mud ball game in Kampung Sewu, Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, Indonesia. The Empu mud ball game is an intergenerational activity that reconnects children with the Bengawan Solo River through playful learning. Once commonly played along the riverbanks of Kampung Sewu, the game involves crafting balls from river mud, racing them down a slope, and testing their strength by striking them against one another.

The comic is part of the Kembali Bermimpi project, a creative initiative developed in Kampung Sewu, Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, in 2025 through a collaboration between the GENERATE Project and Universitas Sebelas Maret, Indonesia. The project responds to the increasing vulnerability of riverside communities along the Bengawan Solo River to flooding and climate-related hazards, as well as the gradual weakening of cultural, social, and intergenerational relationships with the river.

Kembali Bermimpi seeks to reconnect communities with the river by reactivating cultural memory, creativity, and citizen-led knowledge. Through a participatory design and transdisciplinary research approach, the project brings together community members, students, and researchers as collaborators to collectively explore new ways of imagining the river as a shared ecological and cultural space.

The comic is part of a broader effort to revitalise the Empu mud ball game, not only as cultural preservation, but as a way to reconnect younger generations with the river, their histories, and one another. It invites readers to see the Bengawan Solo River not only as a site of risk, but as a space of memory, learning, and collective care, where communities can reimagine their shared futures.