WEARABLE | Exhibition Artworks

Bandung | Yogyakarta | Ubud

( Statement for The Third Asia - Pacific Triennial Brisbane )

Consciousness of time appeared with the beginning of a new era after the reassignment of Suharto who has been more than thirty years the president of Indonesia. Hope for the future and the meaning of future itself related democracy, has arisen with the fall of political censorship.

With this newfound freedom of expression, but in the middle of the economical and political crisis, artist in Indonesia have to redefine their position. Still many taboos, rules and habits remain to be questioned and visualized.

Growing up in the Netherlands I have chosen to live in a total different culture and I have been living and working in Java since 1984. What interests me is that artist in Indonesia are pushed to be aware of their place/ function in society and their position to communicate to that society. All kinds of aspects entered my art while being part of this hybrid society, with a strong traditional background, a rather new capitalist consumer culture and political tensions.

What we consider as reality comes to us by contrasts in experiences. Everybody is tied to a certain spot where he/she is born, lives and dies. My work deals with awareness of our own existence on a certain spot in the world. The paintings, photographs, installations and performances I made during the last years basically are meant to invite people to consider where they are placed. On one side every person has to deal with very personal experiences which come to us by our family-background, given possibilities and choices. On the other side experiences are made by general circumstances (culturally, politically and socially).

In my art I like to confront the audience with their own existence with memories and thoughts, related to the cultural, social and political circumstances. To shorten the distance between the audience and the art work, I create art where persons are physical - and psychological part of the work and actively get an experience. The performance 'Pribumi', refers to the 13th and 14th of May 1998, when riots took place and where ethnic Chinese people were killed and raped. During and after these riots many people put notes on their doors with the word 'Pribumi', 'Pribumi asli', or 'Pribumi Asli Moslem', which means indigenous people or original Moslem indigenous people.

By frying frog-legs in the street done by seven foreign people living in Yogyakarta, I tried to open up thoughts and discussions about racism. Frog legs are Chinese Food and Moslems are not allowed to eat them because they are not 'halal' (clean). I, original Dutch, was confronted with one of the consequences of colonial background and the favor treatment to Chinese by the Dutch in colonial times. The installation 'Hi Inlander (Indigenous Javanese people called by the Dutch Colonizer) questions borders of political correctness by using skins in the forms of Veils which closes communication and meat in the form of cooking installations which opens up communication by exchanging recipes of different cultures. Dari mana?, mau ke mana?, asli mana? Where are you from?, where are you going?, where do you originally come from?

Mella Jaarsma

Alexandra J. Wuisan | Astari Rasjid | Choi Jeong-Hwa | Damon Moon
David Sequeira | Frances Alleblas | Mella Jaarsma | Minako Saitoh | Midori Hirota
Mongkol Plienbangchang | Park Hye-Sung | Ruswandi Abdul Ghani | W. Christiawan

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