Yayak caught between two worlds

Zora Rahman, Contributor, Cologne, Germany

"Salam Merdeka" (greetings to freedom), Yayak Yatmaka will call out at every visitor climbing up the stairs to his apartment. His strong voice, sharp glare and long gray hair and beard emphasize the strong personality of the Javanese.

Freedom is definitely one of the most important values to the artist from Yogyakarta, who had to leave his home country 11 years ago to find a place where he could retain his freedom of expression. In his homeland, then under the rule of authoritarian president Soeharto, art was often considered politically dangerous.

That was what he experienced. He fled Indonesia because a caricature of Soeharto put his life at stake. His second son had just been born.

Although Yayak could escape the persecution and start a new life in Cologne with his German wife and sons, he now has three, half of him still belongs in Indonesia.

"Now I have one foot here and one foot there", he says.

Besides the emotional ties to his Indonesian family and friends, Yayak still has a lot of contact and cooperation with social and political groups in Indonesia. All his work -- be it an illustration for the Indonesia House in Amsterdam or the cover for the new CD of Taring Padi (an artists group in Yogyakarta) -- concerns Indonesia.

Only in the caricatures and illustrations he makes for local media, does he sometimes discuss German topics.

The restless 47-year-old is an all-round talent. He is not only a designer and painter, he is also a musician and a writer. The fifth of 10 children, he learned from his childhood to appreciate the arts. He played music in kindergarten and acted at high school.

From 1977 until 1986 Yayak studied at the Institute for Graphic Design at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and worked as a freelancer for several magazines, including Pustaka and Tempo. He was also an illustrator for the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) and won several prizes at a poster competition on children rights.

"I studied architecture, but I hate drawing straight lines", he joked.

But art for art's sake was not enough for him. Yayak was active at the student's committee until the ITB -- famous for its anti-Soeharto political activism -- was occupied by the army. This was when Yayak and some of his friends looked for activities outside the campus and became interested in alternative education for children.

"We wanted to use art as an instrument for alternative lessons, to make the children interested in their own culture", he says. "Also because of political reasons: Lower class children with their early experiences of hard working life were easier to be made politically conscious. The more mature, the more politicized."

So, from 1987 until 1991, Yayak became the coordinator for Secretariat for Free Children in Indonesia (SAMIN) in Yogyakarta -- an NGO that organizes alternative education for street children.

Of course, art is not enough for complete education because it is only part of the basic subjects. But for those children who do not have the chance to go to school, art can be really good education, for example practicing languages by playing theater or learning to interact with others by playing music together.

After his "accident" with the Soeharto regime and his departure from Indonesia, Yayak had to start over in Germany in 1992. In the beginning, still paralyzed by the forced exile, he helped build up an international network and was working for organizations like Orcades, Terres des Hommes and Unicef. He held exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and a lot of other European cities.

"It was very difficult", Yayak says. "I had to learn again the basics, about the different cultures, including different perceptions, visions and ideals -- and, of course, about the different forms of art."

He likes to work with subjects from the social realities. Over the last five years he has been mainly focussing on child labor in Asia.

"I want to show these pictures until the reality turns good", he said. In his current exhibition in Cologne though, he shows mainly women, maidens with very tender appearances and few cloths, but always in a political context.

In his trilogy Who's the terrorist? for example, the artist painted a Venus-like woman in front of masked, armed figures.

"I think, women are another way to show basic human problems -- everybody was birthed by a woman", he said. "Actually, I am just hiding myself behind the label artist: My work can never be independent from political problems", he added.

The focus of his private life is, of course, at his Cologne apartment close to the River Rhine. Because his studio is at home and his wife works outside, he is the one who looks after the children and their daily needs.

On his youngest child, 5, Yayak tries to provide what he could not give to his elder children during his troubled years.

"I feel so sorry, that they could not experience more, how beautiful their father's home country is. That you just have to pick up the bananas there from the tree instead of buying them for a lot of money in the supermarket."

But although he regrets losing some important things in life, Yayak would act in the same way again. When he started his political activities at the university in 1978, most of the students could not imagine that it would be another 20 years before the New Order regime finally fell.

"I was convinced to do the right thing, because the system was wrong", he said. "I never thought about being afraid, there was just no alternative for me."

It was not until after 1998 that Yayak could finally return to Indonesia. One year later his children set foot on Indonesian soil. But since they grew up in Germany, have a German way of life, German education and German mother tongue, there are no plans to return permanently.

"If we plant a tree, we always want to watch it -- how it grows", he says. Nevertheless the idealist is still dreaming of other seeds he wants to sow in Indonesia. "As long as there is a chance, that the seed of a free education will grow, we have to go on", Yayak says.

"I hope that we find new media to correct all the mistakes that the New Order made. We should become more open and build free education for a free people."