Blazing the trail for innovation in art collaboration

Blazing the trail for innovation in art collaboration

By Carla Bianpoen

JAKARTA (JP): In the world of art, collaboration is not an
unusual phenomenon. It generally takes the shape of joint
exhibitions. Recent endeavors reveal an urge to go beyond the
usual routes.

This means sharing, communicating and mitigating the
boundaries that hinder access to international recognition for
certain artists.

An amazing breakthrough can be recorded following Dutch artist
Rienke Ennghardt's introduction of her Weather Report, currently
on show at the Erasmus Huis Dutch Cultural Center in Jakarta.

Weather Report is an exhibition of works in which works of art
from different countries are united in one work, where a center
piece is provided by the initiating artist. The works speak of
the participatory collaboration of artists from the Netherlands
and various countries in Southeast and East Asia.

The idea of participatory collaboration among artists may well
mean the beginning of new avenues in art creation; a trend that
would be in line with the current thinking in development.

Process

Weather Report started in the Netherlands and was shaped along
the tracks of Southeast Asian countries. Unlike the usual
collaborative efforts in the arts, the concept of Weather Report
was based on sharing, communicating and participating in a way
that leaves participants free to carry out their creativity as
they themselves feel fit.

Linking emotional communication between artists from different
parts of the world, the enterprise responded to an overall need
for sharing and communication between artists. This is
particularly tangible with artists whose national situation has
kept them from having dialogs with colleagues from other regions.

Rienke Enghardt set off for her first trip to Asia in 1991. A
train journey took her from Europe to China. She continued on to
Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and
Indonesia. In each country she visited she put her feelings and
experiences into drawings, which she then cut into four pieces.
Two pieces were sent home to the Netherlands and two were handed,
or sent, to artists in Asia, one of which would be from the
country where the drawing was made.

Each artist was asked to complete their part of the drawing as
they thought and felt was fitting: no assignments and no
guidelines were given; only the name of the country in which the
drawing had been made, and the format in which they had to send
it back, as well as the information as to which part of the work
it made out. This creative undertaking resulted in 78 works of
art, made by 38 artists from 10 different countries.

Rienke's vision of global collaboration in a participatory
manner emerged in a moment of enlightenment, when seeking to
address her inner urges. For her, sharing and communicating
should bring about something creative, in which more than just
one or two artists could take part.

"Creating a point where roads meet," she said, adding that
when she started the project, she had only her intuition to count
on. Nobody could tell whether the fragments would come back at
all. It was "connecting between what you know and don't know,"
she explains.

Artists' reactions

At first sight, the works on show look like puzzles cleverly
put together. A central piece with four quarters encompassing it
make up each work, with styles that differ because of the
artist's regional origin. Sometimes this can confuse.
Nevertheless, the works are intriguing and, after a while, the
enriching aspects of different styles and color mixes open up new
visions.

There were participants who did respond to Rienke's fragment,
by the same intuition that had led Rienke to invite them to
participate. In fact, some artists from different countries came
up with the same thought of mind, expressed in similar symbols
and color shades. Others could fill in where Rienke's fragments
were reflections of the emptiness she felt. Like the work in
which Rienke's center piece features a hand, a teddy bear with
arms outstretched, as in desperation, and some sketching of
apartments, all separate from each other.

"I did not have any feelings that I could relate to in Laos, I
felt completely alien," Rienke complains.

Kongphat Luangrath, who received the piece with part of the
hand on it, filled the whole of his part with drawings that are
like a narration of all the undercurrents in the Laotian city;
that only a native of that country could feel and understand.
Kongphat admits that "we can only dream of the other fragments".
For Pinari Sanpitak from Thailand, it provided a way into
freedom. "Modern-day ways of life do not provide you with much
freedom," she says.

Nardy Stolker from the Netherlands found it very "confronting"
to work on something not initiated herself; something of which
she could not predict the outcome. Feng Bin of China found the
contact and cooperation between individuals "a good beginning for
the future".

From Indonesia, two artists participated, Eddie haRa and
Nindityo Adipurnama, both from Yogyakarta. Nindityo admitted that
he was, at first, somewhat irritated by the request, received
together with a quarter piece of Rienke's drawing. Why in the
world would I work on something that Rienke has finished already,
he wondered. He was not used to creating an artwork with someone
else. Nevertheless, he overcame his initial reluctance and
started looking at what he had received. Unable to make out
anything of the fragment, he decided to just follow his own flow
of imagination.

"The fragment had something that I saw as a strong hand," he
said. Not surprisingly, a strong hand was then associated with
Margaret Thatcher, and, since she is a woman, it brought Nindityo
to his bias of women (Javanese) having to wear the (for him)
unbearable chignon. The chignon, as a symbol of violating women's
rights, has been an obsession in many instances of Nindityo's
artistic career.

What next

Indonesia is the fifth country of exhibition, after the
Netherlands, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia. Vietnam, China,
Singapore and Hong Kong are on the list, before the exhibit
returns to the Netherlands in April 1996. The exhibition is
traveling to all the countries which had artists participating in
the project. This allows the participating artists to have a look
at the completed works, Rienke says.

More than that, the works of Weather Report will continue to
bring together artists of different cultures. By April 1996 the
decision will have to be made whether to tear apart the fragments
that have been united, or keep the works as they are.

According to Rienke, most artists would love to keep the works
as they are. Who knows, maybe a museum or some other art
institution may be interested in keeping safe the first steps of
a possibly expanding movement.

The exhibition at Erasmus Huis Jakarta runs until Nov. 8.