Students see EU differently
Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta
This year's event of the European Union (the EU) took the organizers, and the public, a step further. Entertaining the Indonesian public with various kinds of traditional and contemporary features of their culture is all nice and well. But has it helped in shaping an idea of what the EU actually is? What do Indonesian students of art imagine when they think of the EU?
Twenty students of the arts and crafts departments of the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) ventured into "imagining the EU", an association of countries of which most seem to have had only some distant notion. Quite surprisingly, since the world of art has known the term "Europe" for ages and art from the West is usually introduced by art from Europe.
Even more surprising is the curator's request to spectators, not to view the works from an artistic perspective. And that, while it is about the works of students now in their second, third and fourth year at IKJ! Moreover, the exhibition is announced as an Arts Exhibition.
Nevertheless, the works do reveal the extent to which the EU is known among arts students in the 23-25 years age group. Muhammad Taufiq for one, retorts through the medium of comics (five plates) that not much is known about the EU.
Free to express whatever came to mind in relation to the EU, it was, however, special icons representing a certain country that most participants referred to in their works.
For Ahmad Fauzi, it's the Euro Cup that first comes to mind. Anggun Priambodo remembers British Damien Hirst's I'm going to die and I want to lie forever. Bertie Alia Bahaduri thinks of a clean environment, such as hailed by the Cranberries rock group. Her installation titled Foria Europa Batik is a kind of standing lamp made of textile, and decorated with packages of products, like tea of a British brand. Guntur Wibowo depicts a tiger head symbolizing power, linked to British guards marching on horseback. Still in Britain, it's John Lennon and the legendary Beatles who give rise to Agus Nugraha's installation consisting of Lennon's picture, some candles and incense. Astrid Rosdiana Ishak, a student of Fashion Design and Clothing, remembers How Music Influences Fashion back in the 1960s and 70s.
Photographic pictures include Parodi Eropa by Eriek Nurhikmat, Timur Angin and Asep Sugianto, whose Berbagi Mimpi pictures an Indonesian school of simple means. The blackboard has the map of Europe and the list of EU member countries. "I just wish we had schools like the Europeans," sighed Asep.
Direct references to the European Union are found in Trika J.S.' work titled United. It links photo pieces of the various brands, shapes and colors of European cars into one unit applying the mode of puzzle making. The same can be said of Novan Dickman's Union People, a two-dimensional silhouettes presenting the EU member countries. Although each have different features, they will have one Euro currency. Muhammad Iqbal's sculpture of balls stacked upon each other reflects his vision of the EU. Aprilia Apsari displays eight panels, each carrying one letter of the word European, with images she has seen in foreign magazines. Yohanes Caturwindu Yudha pictures a couple in front of a glass window featuring the EU's logo. Irwan Lesmana (b. 1977) crafts railway coaches representing the EU member states on the speedway towards success.
Nasya Patrini Rusdi 's Husein and Jacqueline deals with the more universal issue of mixed marriages. Other works are open to any of the spectator's interpretation like Indra Arief Hidayat's Untitled silkscreen on canvas and Galuh Yudistiranto's collage of color print photography which looks like a traffic problem, but might as well denote something else.
PAW Purwo Adi Widodo is the only one referring to historical evidence of close Indonesian-European links in the arts. A digital image on canvas titled Mona Ida Ayu looks like a twin sister of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, but just a bit more timid and made to look Balinese by dressing and wearing jewelry like a Balinese woman and a white frangipani flower as the finishing touch.
The exhibition is at the Erasmus Huis, and runs until Nov. 24.