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...