Exhibition puts tourism under the microscope

Exhibition puts tourism under the microscope

By Tjahjono Ep.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): It was a quiet morning at Via-via cafe on Jl.
Parangtritis. Several employees busied themselves preparing meals
probably ordered by foreign tourists a day or two before.

A woman looked at a photobox created by J. Ulis, a 28-year-old
student from the Indonesian Art Institute in Yogyakarta. She
smiled, shook her head and went back to her seat for breakfast.

The cafe, which is popular among Western tourists visiting the
ancient city, is hosting a photobox exhibition with the odd title
Photobox -- Danger, Hot Air. Opened on Jan. 10, the show will run
for three months at the cafe on Jl. Prawirotaman 24B, Yogyakarta.

Tourism is the main theme, raising the dialectic of an
industry so often obscured by financial concerns. All six works
on display focus on human realities in tourism.

Ulis said he was inspired by the fact that tourism has always
been dominated by organizers' greed for money and that its
success is usually measured in terms of profits.

He believed tourist authorities and the public alike treat
foreign tourists as "economic commodities", and they are spoilt
with cultural exoticism.

In Ulis' view, everyone is a "tourist" when moving from one
place to another, regardless of the distance. The movement has
cultural implications because of the contact experienced in the
journey from one community to another, culturally different one.

He illustrates his view in a photobox in which three foreign
tourists happily riding bikes wave at three bulls. Two of the
bulls with sensual lips respond with a smile, and the other does
not care.

Another work shows an indigenous child lying on a bottle of
imported insect repellent. The child look down with amazement at
a middle-aged tourist carrying a similar bottle.

In another, a foreign tourist uses a bunch of twigs to beat
another tourist who is naked. Another two tourists cry: "Danger,
hot air."

Ulis also tells of the young women venture abroad for
employment, with titles like Mother pray for my journey, My life
behind the wheel and Your job, go on business, go home because
homesick.

The show is unique on several counts. Held at a cafe belonging
to Belgian Mie Cornoedus, all the works are packed with cultural
criticism. In Via-via cafe, defined by the typical architecture
of a tropical house, a cultural dialectic takes place between the
indigenous Ulis and the Western tourists who visit every day.

Ulis shows an innovative way of presenting his artistic
creations. His six photoboxes are presented in collage. The
photographs printed on orthofilm are collaged on transparent mica
and bathed in neon light from the opposite direction.

It is a breakthrough in presenting photographs. By
manipulating composition and the shape of objects, the pictures
are highly eye-catching.

The technique is widely used in picture manipulation for the
advertising industry. Ulis, a promising artist from West
Kalimantan, adopts the innovation for high quality works of art.

However, Ulis still sticks to the conventional and has yet to
move onto further experimentation.