Collaboration, key to mutual understanding

Ade Tanesia, Contributor, Yogyakarta

In the fine art world, authenticity is important, which results, in particular, in individual working methods with artists as the center of the creation process, and, at the same time, explains why many artists, mainly in Indonesia, are reluctant to collaborate.

But San Francisco-based artist Alicia McCarthy, who is currently taking part in a mural project titled Sama-Sama/You Are Welcome in Yogyakarta, considers collaboration as her art philosophy.

Her stance can easily be seen in the way she carried out the mural project initiated by Yogyakarta-based Apotik Komik and San Francisco-based Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP). The project, running from July through October this year, involves six American artists, who came to Yogyakarta in July to work on murals with the assistance of local artists, and four Apotik Komik artists who will fly to San Francisco in September to paint murals there.

In her working process -- instead of asking for local artists' assistance like her other fellow artists taking part in the project, McCarthy directly asked the local artists to collaborate with her.

While working on her mural on a wall alongside railway lines in Lempuyangan, for instance, McCarthy asked her Indonesian counterparts, Eko Didik Sukowati and Farhansiki, to get involved in an intensive dialog with her on the theme she was suggesting, Nobody's Home. Such a dialog, according to McCarthy, was important because it would help the collaborating artists more easily understand each other's culture.

For the collaboration, McCarthy created simple forms on the wall, mostly rainbows, whose points connected with one another, symbolizing the differences in humans and how they fill each other.

She also added three-dimensional elements in her collaborative work, which emerged during her intensive dialog with local artists in her group.

"Dialog is very interesting in a collaborative work. It is through dialog that two or more different thoughts can give rise to a brand-new thing. That way, too, we enrich ourselves," McCarthy said.

In almost all her exhibitions or murals, McCarthy shares space with other artists.

"I'm not a kind of person who can just claim that something is totally mine because many people contribute a great deal to the creative process of an artwork but are often forgotten," she said.

McCarthy considered the creation of an artwork to be like playing a music composition, where each of the instruments played has to complement the others for the best result. Her collaborative activities, too, have certain objectives. She quite understands that, back in her country, not everybody has access to arts spaces like museums and galleries, so she uses collaboration as a medium to introduce other artists to the public.

"I always want to represent my community because it's they who have made me the way I am," McCarthy said.

However, her ideas for collaboration have not always run smoothly. Once she was invited to exhibit her works at a gallery in her country. She asked another artist to collaborate with her and stated the artist's name on her posters, confusing the gallery's director. Fortunately, the director was eventually able to appreciate her art concept.

McCarthy is concerned about the problem of numerous arts spaces that many people cannot access. In an exhibition in 2000, for example, she displayed her artwork on a museum window facing the outside because she thought many people would not be able to afford to go inside. By doing so, she let passersby enjoy her artwork at no cost to themselves.

McCarthy is also known for simplicity in her works, arguing simple works are easier to digest and more inspiring.

"I don't want people to think that the visual arts are difficult to comprehend. Art does not just belong to artists; it also belongs to everybody," McCarthy said.

As an artist, McCarthy is very sociable. She likes to give free courses or run workshops for marginalized people near her. In Tenderloin, San Francisco, for example, she gave a free doll- making course.

She said that by doing so, she was not trying to offer a solution to increase the community's income, for example.

"I do it (holding the course) to make them learn how to express themselves, get to know other people living in the area, and, most of all, know more about themselves," she said, adding that she was also able to run a workshop on social security insurance and on simple photography skills.

McCarthy is also an artist who is not averse to selling her artwork.

"I used to think that when I sold my work my soul was stolen by rich people. Now I think I do deserve to receive something for my efforts. The arts do need financial support. Besides, what is important is that we do not lose our spirit of giving through art just because of money," she said.

Through collaboration, McCarthy is trying to keep up her spirit, hoping people will get to know each other better, as well as themselves.