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THURSDAYTHTHURHUURSDS AY January 5, 2017

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ARAHMAIANI

shortlisted forBalestier AwardArahmaiani is one of the country’s most outspoken artists,known for her strong stances on tolerance and pluralism.

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CONTRIBUTOR/JAKARTA

rt Stage Singapore will open its doors for the 2017 edition ofthe art fair on Jan.11. But, in collaboration with the UnitedStates Embassy in Singapore, it will first host the BalestierAward for Freedom of Art expression.
The third edition of the award has three finalists — Indonesiancontemporary artist Arahmaiani, Myanmar’s Aye Ko, and Vietnamese artist Chaw Ei Thein. The winner, which will be announced on
Jan. 10, will also take home a cash prize of US$15,000.
Born in Bandung in 1961, Arahmaiani is known as one of thecountry’s most outspoken activist artists, whose fame stretches tothe corners of Asia and the West. A rebel in the eyes of her adversaries, she has been lauded for her bravery and strength, daring
to stand up against injustice, repressive fanaticism and discrimination of any kind.
She has featured in more than a hundred solo and group exhibitions around the world, including the Venice Biennale,
the Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, the landmark 1996
Traditions and Tensions exhibition by the Asia Society in
New York City, Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennale, just to
name a few.
In 2007, during the Global Feminisms exhibition heldat the Brooklyn Museum Arahmaiani spoke out against
all kinds of conservatism, fundamentalism and dogmatism, regardless if it was coming from religion or fromthe globalized economy. Her artwork has appeared ininstitutions in the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan.
As a child, she loved to listen to stories about theProphet which evoked a desire to become a prophet
herself. However, she was told she could never beone, because she was a girl. It was her first

Pillows of Dukkha

confrontation with gender issues.
Her father, a modern Islamic scholar provided her a strict Islamic education and culture. Her mother’s Hindu and Buddhist background, however, enabled her to learn Javanese dances, songs, legends, poetry, and customs. Her upbringing saw the coexistence of both convictions.
Tolerance and plurality became ingrained within her very being. Her
name alone (Arahma-iani) was a compromise, she said. Arahma has its
root in Arabic meaning “loving”, while iani derives from “human being”
in Hindi.
It seems only natural that she was averse to fanaticism, discriminationand injustice. Her cultural background also spurred her interest in researching the past cultures of Animism, Hinduism and Buddhism in Indonesia.
Her interest in Buddhist culture intensified when she learned that areformer of Tibetan Buddhism had spent 12 years of study in the ancient
kingdom of Sriwijaya. She was inspired to take her 2006 Flag Project toTibet, where she worked with monks and villagers in the Kham region ofTibet, focusing on ecological issues.
Highly critical of uneven power relations in societies across the world,she has been incorporating the issues of capitalist power, the rise of consumerism, the imposition of gender relations and the rights of women andmen into powerful performance art, inducing the ire of many but admiredby just as many too.
Earlier on, in the 1980s, was her public debut, marking her first performance, protesting the rising number of accidents along the main thoroughfare in Bandung. She wrapped lamp posts along the main street of thecity with blood stained bandages, stopped traffic to distribute flyers detailing the number and types of accidents that were increasingly occurring
along this street.
She was jailed, expelled from art school at Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and banned from taking part in exhibitions at the time. Increasingly considered a troublemaker, she left the country, became a nomad and lived the life of a street artist. But she also studied in Enschede,
Netherlands,
and Sydney, Australia, while enhancing her knowledge ofNart,
a culture and philosophy.
Exploring the issue of Muslim identity and its diverging ramification,
tio her works were perceived as provocative, often to this dismay offundamentalists.
fundGreatlyinspired by Hindu and Buddhist culture, her 1994 painting
G
LinggaLing Yoni aspired to put an accent on the sacred union of the phallus
and thet vagina.
Combinedwith Arabic letters covering a canvas denoting the phraseC“Natureis a book”, it became misunderstood as mere feminist activism.
“NatBut today, she notes, it is being understood as the intrinsic need for balance in the world’s power relations in order to achieve peace.
Passionate
to show the human face of religion, she also created the cushPa
ions shaping the word Allah in Arabic letters (in Stitching the Wounds).
These
Thes too were met with critical commentaries, which she defied insistingthat the word Allah for her means “love”.
HerH Flag Project of community based performances, created in2006,
200 was a means of community dialogue and rebuilding. Startingwith a flag featuring her design with the Arabic-derived Indonesian
word akal (sense or cunning), other designs followed denoting issuesof consumerism
and capitalist power, such as names of multinational
cocorporations
like Freeport and Coca Cola. The project eventually excorp
pandedpand from Indonesia to Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philip-Flag Project in Singapore

Courtesy of Arahmaiani

Carla Bianpoen

Courtesy of Arahmaiani

Photo by Carla Bianpoen

Shadow of the Past
pines, Japan, Thailand and then China.
Her successful collaboration with Buddhist monks to minimize ecological destruction in Tibet’s plateau region also impacted on her revived understanding of cultural diversity and spirituality.
Informed by Tibetan Buddhism, her recent exhibition in New York,“Shadow of the Past”, explored such issues of cultural syncretism, humanity’s interconnectedness with nature, and the place of the feminine in religious traditions and in spiritual life in general.
A quality of calm and peacefulness is tangible in the monochromaticgray color of the Pillows of Dukkha, and the paintings feature women’s faces, some crowned with inscriptions in Arabic and Tibetan.
A video titled Lasem, a Javanese town in Central Java where her grandmother used to buy batik, shows her face covered with mud, walking
through the empty buildings in the abandoned Javanese town that wasonce inhabited by ethnic Chinese Indonesians.
It seems her passionate activism has crystallized into a depth of quality concerning the future of humanity and the future of the earth. Comingback to the concept of Lingga and Yoni, she reiterates it as basic principles
for achieving peace in the world.

Courtesy of Arahmaiani

GUESS WHAT?
WHPlot twists, suspense mark Georgeeorge
Lucas’ plans for museum

Janet JacksonJacks has given birth
to a son

Gosling: Debbie
bie Reynolds
inspired ‘La Laa Land’ cast

SAN FRANCISCO: GeGeorge Lucas is no stranger to epic struggles on the big scree
screen, but he didn’t expect one off-camera
when it came to his art
a collection.
For nearly a decade,the ﬁlmmaker has tried
died tomuseum to house an extensive
build a mve personcollection that includes 40,000 paintings,
al colle
aintings,
illustrations and ﬁlm-related items.
illustrs. But
legal entanglements and other complilega
omplications have thwarted his efforts.
catis.
After several false starts, Lucas
as andhis art team say they will decide
e later
this month whether to put the muthi
seum in San Francisco or Los Angeles,
sengeles,that has stirred a California
a strategy
sifornia
rivalry.
riv
The prize is big, and both cities
ties wantit badly.
“This is the largest civic gift in American history,” LA Mayor Eric Garcetti
etti told
The Associated Press. “I think Los
os Angeles is the natural home for it” — a notionthat San Francisco ofﬁcials enthusiasticallysiasticallycontest. — APcontNEW YORK: The 5
50-year-old star and husband Wissam Al Mana welwelcomed their ﬁrst child on Tuesday, her representatives
told People magazine.
represen“Janet Jackson and husband Wissam Al Mana
are thrilled to wewelcome their new son Eissa Al
Mana into the world,” a spokesman for Jackson
said in a statement.
statem“Janet had a stress-free healthy delivery andis resting comcomfortably.”
Jackson married
Qatari businessman Al Manamarin 2012, said People,and news of their ﬁrstPchild’s impending
impendi arrival was reported in May.
Speculation ﬁrst began when the singer
postponed her Unbreakable World Tour so, as she
said in a video posted to Twitter in early April,
she and Al Mana
Ma could focus on their family.
“We’re in theth second leg of the tour, andthere actually has been a sudden change,” shesaid in the clip.
c “I thought it was importantthat you beb the ﬁrst to know.”“My husband and I are planning ourfamily,”family, she continued. “So I’m going tohave to delay the tour.” — The Straits
Times/ANNTimes/

PALM SPRINGS: Ryan Gosling says the late Debbie Reynolds served ass an “inspiration” to thecast and crew of his critically-acclaimed
itically-acclaimed musical
La La Land.
Gosling thanked Reynolds
ynolds “for her wonderfulcareer of work” while accepting an award forthe ﬁlm at the Palm Springs
prings Film Festivalon Monday night.
He says the cast andd crew watched
Reynolds in the 1952 classic musicalSingin’ in the Rain every
ry dayfor inspiration. Gosling calls
Reynolds “a truly unparalleledralleledtalent”.
Reynolds died Wednesday
nesday at
the age of 84. She diedd a dayafter her daughter, actressress Carrie
Fisher, died at the age of 60.
Fisher died four days after
fter reportedly suffering a heart attack. — APAPAPAP