Collaboration, key to mutual understanding

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.