Research trip to Indonesia
As part of the fall 2019 Critical Practices Intensive Month, designed and facilitated by Raed Yassin, we went on a ten-day trip to Indonesia, to the city of Yogyakarta.
Participants in the research trip: Ash Bulayev, Myrto Katsimicha, Chrysanthi Koumianaki, Marina Miliou-Theocharaki, Inés Muñozcano, Nefeli Myrodia, Prodromos Tsinikoris, Raed Yassin
Traveling, both literally and mentally, is a way to reflect on our own practices, habits, and ways of working and living with others. During the 10-day research trip to Indonesia we immersed ourselves into the Javanese culture and tradition as well as in the contemporary art scene of Yogyakarta through a series of meetings with artists, curators and art collectives, workshops led by local practitioners and visits to historical landmarks within the wider Java region.
Our guide along this journey was the visual artist and member of the Bakudapan-Food Study Group, Elia Nurvista. Besides the usual walkabouts and random encounters, we visited and met the curatorial team of the Biennale Jogja XV 2019 which for its 5th edition focused on the notion of the “periphery”. Our introduction to the local art scene continued with a visit to IVAA (Indonesian Visual Art Archive) which has been collecting, documenting and facilitating research to the Indonesian visual art history for the past 20 years, as well as through meetings with artists and collectives including, Ace House Collective, KUNCI Study Forum & Collective, lifepatch, LIR Space and their long-term site-specific project 900mdpl, Ruang MES 56 and their retrospective exhibition “We Go Where We Now”, a “Making Sambal” workshop on Indonesian culinary traditions with Bakudapan-Food Study Group, among others. We wandered into the gardens and the collections of Museum Ullen Sentalu, we watched the traditional shadow theatre play “Wayang Kulit”, we learned how to do batik, we took a two-day introductory workshop to Gamelan music in Surakarta, attended a traditional wedding, and watched a dance performance by the Ramayana Ballet at Prambanan temple. But there were also our longest excursions. The Open Salon #3 found us meeting the sunrise at Borobudur temple, the world’s biggest Buddhist temple. We visited Gereja Ayam “prayer house” that takes the shape of a giant wooden chicken or dove. Last but not least, we took a jeep ride to explore the devastated area left behind by the large eruption of Merapi volcano in 2010 and entered the remnants of what was once a village through Museum Omahku Memoriku, a museum of memories initiated by the former residents of the area.
Photo: Nefeli Myrodia
“A space of communal dissonance made up of the interrelationships between our singular movements, which are inseparable from the movement of the ensemble moving towards the reality of the everyday that lies before us. This is how I would like to remember this trip, through the senses. Time is always at stake or so it seems. Perhaps the fulfillment comes when one is able to feel that is part of an other.”
“Backstage is more important and takes more space than the front. / You can change place whenever you like. / The musicians all wear the same clothes. / Same shirt / different skirts and scarves on their heads. / Jasmines, but the outfit changes from one region to the next. The female singers, same clothes. / They are also drinking their tea. / It’s more important for them how they are on stage and not the show itself. See the colors of the dolls, they are there for the puppet player… not for the audience.”
Photo: Marina Miliou-Theocharaki
“How to concretize in words an experience that was soft, fluid, rigorous and vulnerable, like our existence itself? Experiencing Indonesia the way we did, was unperceivable, indescribable, raw and holistic in the most deep and triggering ways. Trying to describe these twelve days through the use of language may even harm the experience itself. Raed Yassin’s concept of the “soft shell crab” tested us in the best ways; it exposed us, deconstructed our minds and senses, as if our bones were made of glass, they shattered and were restructured with a more honest, flexible and empowered foundation than before. When I recollect our experiences within the Indonesian art scene, all I can think about is notions of collectivity, empowerment and support.”
Photo: Nefeli Myrodia
“But there was also the hot and humid weather, the mangos and the rice, the shadow puppet theatre, the gamelan all around –from a workshop we took, to crazy remixes at rave parties – a wedding we kind of crushed in, and, inevitably, there was also Gojek. Gojek is this Super App based on platform economy (controversial old acquaintances to the majority of us) that struck us with its infinite possibilities and its efficiency as the height of modernity. However, it raised the question do we all benefit from the digital revolution.”
“She was waiting for us in the evening, when the drivers brought us back to the parking space with their open topped Jeeps. Before, our group was visiting for hours the terrain around the Merapi Volcano: the “Omakhu Memoriku” memorial site, which displayed the aftermath of the devastating eruption on November 5th 2010, the “Lava Merapi” plateau, which usually offers an unblocked view on the volcano, but on that day it was cloudy, and the newly build “Kaliadem” bunker, which promises to offer shelter in case of any new dangerous activity. One of her colleagues was following us everywhere taking pictures, another one was printing them out, a third one was packaging and delivering them to the tour’s finishing point, and at the end of the work chain there was she, selling them. Because of the outbreak, nine years ago, she had lost her home and had to move to a safer zone in the south of Indonesia, where she lives up until today. Every morning she is coming back to the place that changed her life, trying to convince visitors to buy their souvenir pictures. Her name is Nurul.”
