Krisna Murti turns family's memories into artwork

By Aendra H. Medita

JAKARTA (JP): White attending the 7th biennial International Fine Art Festival in Havana, Cuba, Indonesian video artist Krisna Murti managed to create a new work titled Family's Memories (Series I, Havana City, 2000) which highlights memories coming from 30 families in Cuba.

The work, which was created with the help of Spanish photographer Isabel and Cuban art historian Ingrid, visually resembles family photos but created with a video still technique.

"The advantage (of this technique is), the original voice is audible," he said.

In the making process, the same questions were put to each of the families.

"The interesting thing is, not only are the Cuban families open, warm and spontaneous, but thanks to them, visually, the work becomes exotic with a touch of their interior decor such as Havana's antique rocking chairs, classical photos, flowery home appliances, or the 1960s fans. Unexpectedly, they also told us about their sad memories, such as the one recounted by a 70 year- old woman being left alone by all of her relatives who went to the United States and Canada," Krisna said.

"This 'plus photo album' highlights a humanistic side on its own without the need of script, narration, let alone casting", he said.

The works of the artist, who also presented a black-and-white piece titled, Losing Face (Series II, Havana City), where he performs wearing a Balinese dancer costume in public spaces such as city streets and a public cemetery at the festival, will be displayed until Jan. 5. A fine art curator Maaretta Jaukkuri from Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Fine Art in Helsinki, Finland, has also shown interest to continue the Family's Memories project, he said.

According to Krisna, the new Losing Face (Series II, Havana City), which was also created with the video still technique, has been displayed together with the Losing Face piece which was created in Japan using two screens and has the effect of creating double, suggestive images.

"This video is very poetic since it is using a non linear, prosaic language like other art films. In this, a picture language becomes important," he said.

Festival

At the biennial festival, which ran from Nov. 8 to Dec. 8, Krisna was one of 170 participating artists coming from 50 countries. The festival, organized by Centro de Arte Contemporaneo Wifredo Lam, was titled Closer to One Another, used a theme of highlighting communication and dialog problems among people.

The 43-year-old native of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, who graduated from the Bandung-based Technology Institute School of Fine Art and Design and studied Bali's traditional arts, had held various solo and joint exhibitions since 1980 in various places, such as in Perth, Australia; Bangladesh; Singapore; Taipei; Fukuoka, Japan; Berlin, Germany.

One of his surprising video art works was titled My Ancestors Are From Sangiran Man, which was displayed at The First Fukuoka Arty Trienalle 1999 and became the collection of The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. This year, he displayed The Third Kwang Ju Biennale - 2000 in Korea before taking part in the festival in Havana.

For the artist, the festival was memorable for the opportunity to meet other artists like Jitish, Sheba, Nalini Malani from India, Amanda Heng from Singapore, Alfredo Aquilizan from the Philippines, and curators from Germany, Japan, Sweden, Turkey, England and the Netherlands. He also recounted that he met with people who had visited his ongoing exhibition in Paris.

At the festival, Krisna and other artists, such as Tania Bruguera of Cuba, who now lives in Chicago, were involved in "artists' talk" at Che Guevara hall, America's building in Havana. Krisna said that at the talk, where he also presented his videos titled Supper with Flies and Worms and Body's Migration, was attended by around 400 people, including art historians, curators, artists and the general public.

Apart from his works, the artist said that he also found a contemporary statue belonging to Senegal artist Ndary Lo and Heri Dono's seven singing bikes installation piece equally fascinating.

He said that most of the works taking part in the event highlight pluralities and multiculture issues along with communication, which was the theme of the event.