Kartini's unique contribution to the arts

Kartini's unique contribution to the arts

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

The concepts of gender and human rights have existed since the
dawn of human history, but their emergence as issues is a
phenomenon of modern times. If we talk about gender and human
rights, it is actually women's rights as human beings that we
mean.

In the Indonesian scene, it is particularly the Javanese
cultural tradition that is prominent in this field, particularly
in the Javanese aristocracy. The outstanding writings of Raden
Adjeng Kartini (1879-1904), published after her untimely death at
the age of 25, are marked by the impact of a feudal tradition
exacerbated by Dutch colonialism on a system that discriminated
against women.

As she struggled against the stream and strove to achieve
universal education for girls, she also set out her all-
encompassing vision, which eventually came to fruition in the
five state pillars of Pancasila with a special focus on
tolerance, justice and gender equality.

Analysts consider R.A. Kartini the precursor of national
awakening, while Pramoedya Ananta Toer sees her as the first
modern Indonesian thinker, researcher Cora Vreede de Stuers gives
her credit for some of the wording of the Youth Pledge, and the
Young Indische Vereniging based their association's guidelines on
her ideas.

Polygamy was a major problem in Kartini's life. Not only did
her natural mother, a commoner, fall in status to the second wife
after her father married an aristocrat, Kartini herself
ultimately had to go against her own life principles when she was
married to a man who had already a number of selir, or
concubines.

In contemporary visual arts, the works of Astari Rasjid and
Ninditiyo Adipurnomo, both born and raised in the Javanese
tradition, have opened up the cultural guise of harmony, bringing
to light the repressive rules in the Javanese tradition that were
particularly denigrating toward women. Taking issues to the level
of universal standards of human dignity, the artists' metaphors
are representative elements of the Javanese attire, made national
under the Soeharto regime and particularly represented by the
konde, the traditional chignon hairstyle, and the stagen, a long
belt that Javanese women wrap around their waist to keep their
sarong in place, and look beautiful as is prescribed in the
Javanese cultural tradition.

Astari Rasjid's oeuvre, over more than a decade, describe the
situation of women of the Javanese elite, while subtly and
poignantly indicating that change is bound to happen.

Symbols abound as exemplified in the stirring Loro Blonyo,
featuring a closed antique Javanese door, a woman wearing a white
mask sitting in front of it, and a leather wayang puppet, or the
cinde wedding cloth with sandals at each end in the installation
Resurrected Core.

Her three-dimensional Prettified Cage (1998), featuring the
hardships of wearing the Javanese kebaya, or traditional costume,
is made of fine stainless steel, and refers to the suffering
underneath the facade of beauty and harmony. In the sculpture
Abandoning Virility (2001), parts of the body embellishing the
stainless-steel kebaya are set against a Javanese cloth featuring
a vagina, and reflects upon a woman's life and death, and the
fallacy of make-believe.

Like Kartini, Astari also suggests the changes needed, but
unlike Kartini, the artist does it the Javanese way, subtly --
yet no less poignant. This is evident in Temple of Efflorescense
(1996), a self-portrait in which her body is held in an
untraditional, upright position, her arms straight, gaze firm,
and her hands loose. Her international award-winning piece No U-
Turn (1999) uses Javanese symbolism as a metaphor for persisting
feudal practices and the emerging forces of change and equality,
as visualized in the woman's straight gaze, in the identical
position and height of a man and a woman at opposite sides of a
door, and the lotus flower expressing the wish for new life, or
rebirth.

For Ninditiyo Adipurnomo, the konde, or Javanese chignon, has
become his constant muse. Whether round or oval, it is
intriguing, just like Javanese culture. And what is more, the
konde raises one's curiosity as to what might lie within the
beautifully shaped arrangement. He observed his mother, his
grandmother and other relatives sporting the style, then grew his
hair and eventually found the konde to be heavy, hot and a strain
on the neck.

The konde thus became his metaphor for women's burden and
their subordination to more powerful forces, as well as a symbol
of repression and repressive relationships in society.

One of his earliest works is titled Beban Eksotika Jawa
(Javanese Exotic Burden, 1993), while Introversion April 21st
(1996) shows his interpretation of the konde in relation to
Kartini.

In his installation I am not that kind of particular Javanese
(2002), Ninditiyo arranges a rattan chest filled with objects
that is usually put into a book chest, and 20 paintings featuring
men as well as 20 konde made of stone and rattan.

The traditional chignons, revealed in a variety of shapes and
formed out of different media fill his installations, explores
his culture and his visions for change, including the egalitarian
relationship between the artist and his craftsmen, who help
create his work. In works made with the assistance of his
artisans, Ninditiyo usually credits their names alongside his.

While Kartini practiced similar concepts over a century ago --
she had encouraged the creativity of Jepara artisans as a friend,
and helped them export their products to Holland -- Ninditiyo's
concept is fairly new in the world art.