Art at intersection between trauma, amnesia

Farah Wardani, Contributor, Jakarta

There was a moment when everyone was furious. Everyone was involved in the pandemonium of a sudden explosion of anger that was taken as a form of "freedom", just like a release of a sneeze that keeps tempting and finally comes.

That moment was actually only between three and four years ago, when the Reformation era began in Indonesia. It was the period of political euphoria with its boom of freedom of speech, mass media, demonstrations and political activism, where everybody joined the celebration of "the end of repression".

Now, however, that moment seems like eons away. It is remarkable too see how so many events have been happening in Indonesia within only a couple of years, which are impossible to mention here one by one. Great things have happened, such as the replacement of dictator for instance, although many things have remained the same, like political uncertainty.

Everyone seems to have gotten tired of talking about politics. The euphoria has been fading out slowly but surely, and the trauma appears to be getting replaced by amnesia. It is not a new story for Indonesians, as their collective history seems always to be a vicious circle.

The issue of amnesia raises some questions such as: Can it bring the people down to an apathetic state of mind by again submitting to a situation of oppression, or could it be something more enlightening rather than always trying to look back at the past? Can time really heal all the wounds or does it just merely hide them, just as numerous legal cases have been closed without just solutions?

The questions remain rhetorical. Meanwhile, back to three years ago, probably there were still many who might feel an intense feeling of terror and anger when they went through such experiences like these: seeing a woman brutally butcher a chicken while screaming, "Aceh! Ambon! East Timor!", laying down on a cot inside a military tent "decorated" by B-movie posters, or seeing a giant banner that looked like the one commonly used for Golkar Party propaganda - with New Order images on it and a big slogan which says, "Visit Indonesia Years".

The scenes illustrated above are artwork from three Indonesian contemporary artists (Hell Comes to Paradise by Arahmaiani, Pressure & Pleasure by Agus Suwage, and Visit Indonesia Years, Tisna Sanjaya), among 14 artists who took part in Awas! Recent Art From Indonesia at Bentara Budaya, Jakarta.

It is a traveling exhibition which has been held since 1999, due to the great efforts of the Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta. The show is the last of its series of exhibitions that has been made a voyage to three continents: Asia, Australia and Europe.

The first one was in Yogyakarta at Benteng Vredeburg Museum on Oct. 11, 1999, then moved to several cities in Japan, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia, until it finally comes home at this present time to Indonesia - as shown in the title of the closing exhibition catalog, Mudik (Coming home).

Determining the "contemporary-ness" of its platform, the exhibition shows artwork which are mostly in the form of mixed media installations.

Even though not all of them contain direct political content, Awas! is very political in a general sense. The word "Awas" itself in Indonesian means "beware". It is meant as a warning, a display in a large scale of the euphoria of terror, fury, irony and chaos that emerged in Indonesia in the post-New Order era, the time when everyone wanted to say everything after long decades of silence.

There are so many issues raised here that can be seen through the messages of the artists' works: repression of the previous regime, military violence, feminism, history, cultural imperialism, social restraints, exoticism, hegemony of the West and so on. It posits itself both as a representation of Indonesia through art, and also as a critique of the representation itself.

One of the most interesting points of this exhibition is that it plays around with "the art of politics" and "the politics of art".

Some pieces, such as Under Estimate (Apotik Komik) and Souvenirs from the Third World (Agung Kurniawan) directly criticize artists who seem to be seizing on political events to get international recognition. The fact that these pieces have traveled to foreign lands and been seen by international audiences (as well as getting international recognition along the way) adds more to the ironic nature of it all.

The exhibition has traveled a long way, and now that it has finally come home, what more can it possibly say? Perhaps it is no longer useful to try to appreciate the art as a whole by sticking to the curatorial parameters in the context of 1999, but better to experience them as individual works that speak for themselves.

Some of them are still quite reflective in offering a contemplation on identity and social construction, such as the stone hair buns sculptures in Portrait of a Javanese Man by Nindityo Adipurnomo and the parody of female beauty in The Beauty Myth by Bunga Jeruk.

Last but not least, the return of Awas! makes us rethink to what extent art can take part in enhancing a social movement, whether it is possible to do so or just merely stands as a representation.

The best thing that we probably could get from such exhibitions as Awas! is recalling the questions of the problems in our surroundings that remain unanswered. Awas! is no longer `beware!', it turns mildly into "watch out" (another Indonesian definition).

It may not work strongly as a warning like before, with its displaced position on the intersection between trauma and amnesia. Nevertheless, it still manages to stand out as a reminder, reminding us that once upon a time in Indonesia, we were angry, yet somehow were also "free". -- Awas! in Bentara Budaya, Jl. Palmerah Selatan No. 17, Central Jakarta runs until Oct. 13, 2002. Tel. 5483008. Open daily from 10 a.m. through 6 p.m.