Rahmayani recreates unjust treatment against the weak

Rahmayani recreates unjust treatment against the weak

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): The lights were turned off and silence fell. The
visitors were stunned for a moment. Then a sad and depressing
sound arose, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of a tambourine. A
scene from a slide projector was shown: a black figure watching a
burning building. The smoke from the building billows darkly into
the sky. There is nothing but that black figure and black cloud
of smoke.

Then a poem was read: The helicopter roaring/ Awaking a
soundless sleep/ I pullback the curtains/ I open the window/
Black smoke emerging into the sky/ The rotten smell of collusion/
Roasted corpse/ Stinging/ Tightening the chest.

That was the scene presented by Rahmayani, a painter, poet and
performer, one of the women artists represented at the exhibition
at the Cemara 6 Gallery in Central Jakarta. The exhibition, In
Response to Violence Against Women, runs from Dec. 2 through Dec.
12.

The opening of the exhibition, with the staging and
presentation of poems, was not the usual gallery opening. At
first, the visitors wandered around the gallery to see the
displayed works, before being mesmerized by the gripping
atmosphere. The verses of poetry and the beating of Rani's
tambourine worked together to create a very touching atmosphere.
The series of projected scenes shown on the slide projector
presented a number of the violent tales presently shaking
Indonesia. Rahmayani, or Yani as she is known, recreated each
scene of violence, drawing her pictures onto the slides with a
black pencil.

The scratches of her pencil were basic, having no pretensions
to "proper" artistic technique. The series of scenes are
collected under one title, Patung Batu and Negeri Terbakar (A
Stone Statue and a Burning Country), which seems a visual
companion to her poem Tunjukkan Hatimu Padaku (Show Your Heart to
Me).

The collected scenes are a visual metaphor to verses like, I
stand nailed/in front of a burning mall/fire flutters/ Moving
wild.../ A mother looks for her child/ In panic she calls
anybody/ Somebody says/ It is there!/ Immediately the woman ran
into the fire.../ I'm still nailed/ On this faithfully-
revolving earth/ I can't say a word/ or even spell it...

With simple and clear language, the black figure present in
every scene of violence in her drawings is a reflection of
helplessness, like a "stone statue".

Violence, it seems, has become a daily fact in Indonesia. It
is not only Yani who feels or sees this. We all feel it, and like
the black "stone statue" of Yani's imagination, we are helpless,
only able to stand and witness the tragedies.

In Yani's eyes, violence against women cannot be separated
from the "corrupt" system and structure of Indonesian society.
This established system is a result of society's unfair gender
construction, which inflicts "violence" on certain communities or
marginalized groups.

"Speaking of gender, women are constructed as the weaker sex.
This construction becomes a kind of biological nature. However,
this construction is used not just against women, but many other
groups. This is because the oppression is not against the women,
but against the weak. The weak could be anybody. Coincidentally,
the weak are stereotyped as women. So the struggle of gender here
must be a struggle of the weak to reach equality with the others,
who want to maintain the status quo," said Yani.

This is the reason why Yani, in her works, does not depict
women specifically as the oppressed, but uses nonspecific human
forms. This holds true in her work Tetes Darah, Tetes Air Mata (A
Drop of Blood, A Teardrop). In this painting, Yani uses bullets,
grenades and guns as metaphors for the masculine, while the
feminine is represented by blood and tears, seen dripping from a
black and white figure. The figures in the painting do not have a
specific gender.

Unlike Yani's vision, the other artist's in the exhibition
tend to show the problem of violence as a black and white issue,
in the sense that they see the issue strictly as a male and
female problem. Therefore, physical forms are very specific and
simple in the works of these artists. This is especially true in
Wiranti Tejasukmana's Justice Attacked, Tris Neddy Santo's
Tercabik-cabik (Torn), Non Hendratmo's Silent Hum, Inda C.
Utoyo's The Myth and Anna Zuchriana's Tidak ada tempat lagi (No
more space).

For example, in The Myth, Inda C. Utoyo uses idioms from
ancient Javanese culture to explore the issue of violence.

Women become a kind of "aesthetic decoration", appearing as
ornaments on ancient structures. The women are veiled, but at the
same time we see the beauty of their half-naked bodies. The
painting shows women being idolized, while at the same time they
are marginalized and dismissed. According to Inda, this still
happens today. "Your praise is a trick, hiding all the violence
behind it."

The woman as a victim of violence also appears in the works of
Non Hendratmo, Tris Neddy Santo, Magdalena Pardede, Jerry T and
Iriantina Karnaya.

The concept of gender is still being wielded against women,
relegating them to the level of object rather than person.
However, the violence committed against women is only the most
obvious sign of a deeper violence which is inherent in our
society; violence against the weak and the marginalized. In this
sense, the struggle to end violence against women is a struggle
to end violence against all groups of society who are seen as
weak.

Our present national nightmare involves everyone, either as
victim or victimized. Through her poems, Rahmayani wants to
juggle the thrusting nightmare/ autocracy/ to become a red rose/
as a sign of peace and love...