Arahmaiani

FERTILITY OF THE MIND

ARAHMAIANIFERTILITY OF THE MIND

FOReWorDTYLER ROLLINS

Arahmaiani is one of Indonesia’s most respected and iconic contemporary artists, and her work isinternationally recognized for its powerful and provocative commentaries on social and cultural issues.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, she established herself as a pioneer in the field of performance art in Southeast
Asia, although her practice also incorporates a wide variety of media, including video, installation,
painting, drawing, and sculpture. Since her first exhibition in 1980, her work has been included in over
one hundred solo and group exhibitions around the world. Tyler Rollins Fine Art is pleased to present
Fertility of the Mind, Arahmaiani’s first solo exhibition in the United States, taking place at our New Yorkgallery from January 9 – February 22, 2014.
The exhibition features the first survey of the artist’s thirty years of performance work, curated by Leeza
Ahmady, independent curator and director of Asian Contemporary Art Week, New York. As she explainsin her curatorial statement, Ahmady has selected nineteen performances from Arahmaiani’s vast bodyof work, creating a tapestry-like installation of almost one hundred photographs that document theseworks, supplemented with associated objects. The exhibition also includes selected paintings, herseminal 2004 video, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Legend, and three key installations from the 1990s.
These installations have not been “recreated” precisely but have been modified to reflect the artist’s
evolving practice. Of particular note is a new iteration of Etalase, a 1993 installation in a glass and wood
display cabinet that was exhibited in the landmark 1996 exhibition, Traditions/Tensions, at Asia Society
in New York City, as well as the acclaimed group exhibition, Global Feminisms, at the Brooklyn Museumin 2007.
Since the 1980s, Arahmaiani’s work has been exhibited widely in museums and biennials throughout
the world, from Asia to the Americas, Australia, and Europe, including: the Venice Biennale (2003);
Biennale of the Moving Image, Geneva (2003); Gwangju Biennale (2002); Bienal de São Paulo (2002),
Performance Biennale, Israel (2001); Biennale de Lyon (2000); Werkleitz Biennale (2000); Bienal de la
Habana (1997); Asia-Pacific Triennial, Brisbane, Australia (1996); and the Yogya Biennial (1994). Her
work is currently featured in the group exhibition, Suspended Histories, at the Museum Van Loon in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands (through January 23, 2014). Recent group exhibitions include Women in
Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012 at the Mie Prefectural Art Museum in Japan (2013), as well as
museum exhibitions in Singapore and Australia. Over the past few years a particular focus of her work has
been on environmental issues in the Tibetan plateau region, where she has been actively collaboratingwith local monks and villagers to foster a greater evironmental consciousness. In 2013, she developed
a new performance work related to this project, entitled Memory of Nature, which encorporates Tibetan
cultural influences with her characteristic flag ceremonies.

Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind
LEEZA AHMADY
In late October, I shared my exciting news with Tyler Rollins that, after opening a show in Taipei, I would be
stopping by Indonesia. I had received an invitation to speak at an event I’d been watching for some years –the Jogja Biennale. The 2013 edition, entitled EQUATOR #2: Indonesia Encounters the Arab Region, would
give me the opportunity to soak up an art scene that’s been developing since the seventies, if not earlier.
Tyler immediately suggested that if history is what I am interested in, I must meet Arahmaiani.
Over the past decade, beginning with Central Asia, I have been making my way further and further west,
east, and south, in an effort to decipher artists from all regions of Asia from a larger, continental, andtherefore worldly perspective. My aim has been to study the parallel experiences of artists as well as
their art works as crucial documents for uncovering buried histories that are continuously overlooked
by today’s fast-paced, campaign oriented, global information-age; a time when the principal diseaseafflicting humanity is information itself, an imposter posing as knowledge and wisdom in our minds.
Indonesia is the third largest-populated country in Asia with a very diverse cultural and religious
background, so my intention was to take in as much as I could during a short six-day trip to the city of
Yogyakarta. Also known as Jogja, it is renowned as center of classical Javanese fine art and culture suchas ballet, drama, music, poetry, puppetry, and batik. It was therefore a great relief that within an hourof our meeting, I realized a remarkable way to consider Indonesia, its history, and its relationship to theworld would be to study the life, art, and significant person of Arahmaiani Feisal herself.
Great performance art brilliantly ties together formal and conceptual artistic disciplines and has been
embraced by some of the most prolific artists in the world for over five decades. It is rooted in one
inherent medium: the body, and two quintessential concepts: observation and participation. As a live act,
it generally takes place in public spaces, yielding to direct dialogues between the artist and the public, as
well as amongst audiences present and beyond. Provocative by nature, performance art is conceived forthe purpose of sharing, experiencing, and processing particular mechanisms. It is an inclusive practice,inherently tied to creating awareness and inciting change in oneself and within society.
For this survey of Arahmaiani’s performance work, I selected approximately one hundred photographic
images documenting nineteen different performances over a period of three decades, which map theevolving meditations of an artist whose prolific life of activism and artistic practice have been steadfast
in inquiry. Arahmaiani is generally recognized as a great provocateur of social and political issues, andher works in essence foreground a long and enduring personal and spiritual journey. A process whereby
nothing is spared and all is equally scrutinized, particularly notions of belief, history, and the self. With
Socratic persistence and an experimental approach to conceptual art, Arahmaiani has been staging her
diverse tapestry of spiritual and psychological insights to create consciousness about some of today’s mosturgent problems worldwide. In doing so, she becomes a formal and conceptual medium for communication,connectivity, and cooperation between individuals, collectives, communities, and nations.
Arahmainani’s performances constitute an array of social initiatives, interventions, and alignments that
render whole that, which is hidden or otherwise fragmentary. Advocating a re-thinking of art, history andphilosophy altogether, these performances articulate the artist’s ongoing exposé of mechanistic thought,
beliefs, actions, and policies that plague individuals, countries, regions, and humanity at large; manifested
in her peaceful, beautiful, and deeply symbolic protests, marches, ceremonies, and written texts that
instigate individual and collective vigilance against all ignorance, injustice, and mental manipulation by
agencies of power worldwide.
Born and raised in Afghanistan, and based in New York, Leeza Ahmady is an independent art curator and educator, noted for her foundational
research and curatorial work concerning contemporary art practices in Central Asia. She has presented significant artists of the region ininternational art forums such as dOCUMENTA (13), the Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, and Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Since 2005, in herrole as director of Asian Contemporary Art Week, Ahmady brings together leading New York City museums and galleries in a citywide biennial
comprising of exhibitions, lectures, screenings, and symposia to contextualize the works of artists living and working in various regions of Asia,
including the Middle East.

View of the exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

View of the exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

View of the exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

View of the exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

View of the exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art

Do not prevent the fertility of the mind
1997-2014
feminine napkins, fluorescent lights, wooden stool, glass vial, blood and photograph
108 x 144 x 22 in. (274 x 366 x 56 cm)
Originally exhibited in 1997 at Concrete House, Bangkok, Thailand. Original materials: feminine napkins, neon lights,
wooden stool, glass vial, blood, and photograph.Each iteration incorporates slight changes to the installation, marking
shifts in the artist’s thought process about the work. In the current iteration, all materials remain the same except for a
new version of the photograph, which now depicts the artist wearing a red shirt instead of the original black one. She isholding the same items in her hands: surgical scissors and an IUD wire, which is now red instead of white. The “blood” inthe current iteration is an artificial substitute.

Etalase
1993-2014
glass and wood vitrine and found objects
42 ½ x 71 x 28 in. (108 x 457 x 71 cm)
Originally exhibited in 1993 as part of Sex, Religion, Coca-Cola at Oncor Studio, Jakarta, Indonesia. Reconceived in 1996
for Traditions/Tensions at Asia Society, New York, and in 2007 for Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum. Original
materials: glass and wooden vitrine, Buddha statue, drum, Pat Kua mirror, the Holy Quran (gold colored cover), slide box(with soil), metal and plastic fan (also used in Chinese martial arts as a weapon), Coca-Cola bottle, and photograph. In thecurrent iteration, the Buddha has been replaced with Tara (the feminine Buddha), the Pat Kua mirror is smaller and morepractical, and the color of the cover of the Holy Quran has changed from gold to green. The soil box is now made of wood,and the fan is transformed to natural materials of wood and paper. The photograph inside the display case documents
another performance by the artist, Handle without Care.

Sacred Coke
1993- 2014
wooden table, organic rice, soil, Coca-Cola bottle and condom
40 ½ x 41 x 41 in. (102.5 x 104 x 104 cm)
Originally exhibited in 1993 at Oncor Studio, Jakarta, Indonesia. Reconceived in 1995 for Contemporary Art from Non-Aligned
Countries at the National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia, and in 1997 for Cosmology of Mutilation, the 6th Havana Biennial,
Cuba. Original materials: wooden table, salt, baking powder, soil, Coke bottle, and condom. In the current iteration, the salt
and baking powder are replaced with organic basmati rice; all other materials remain unaltered.

Lingga-Yoni
2013acrylic and rice paper on canvas
55 x 47 in. (140 x 120 cm)

Jawi
2013
acrylic on canvas
55 x 47 in. (140 x 120 cm)

confluence I2010
acrylic on canvas
55 x 94 in. (120 x 240 cm)

i don’t want to be part of your legend
2004
single channel video
11:34 min.
edition of 5

Reflections of a nomad dreamer
2012
handmade book7 x 7 x ¾ in. (18 x 18 x 2 cm)

Accident, 1980
Bandung, Indonesia
In one of her earliest works, concerned by the alarming rise in accidents along the main road in Bandung,
Arahmaiani wrapped the lampposts in the main street of the city with blood stained bandages. She stopped
traffic and engaged passengers in conversation, distributing flyers that detailed the number and types of rising
accidents in that road. As an art student, she became the first in her group to undertake public performance art,
but it caused her suspension from the university and exclusion from further exhibitions. Accident is significant
also in that it incorporated social and political activism as an inherent aspect of art making for Arahmaiani.

Art must not be separated from life and become mere decoration. Art must be able to encourage a new awarenessof humanity and a new social consciousness. — Arahmaiani
Leeza Ahmady, Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement 2014.

Newspaperman, 1981
Bandung, Indonesia
An early performance in collaboration with fellow students from the Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Bandung
Institute of Technology, at a time when art students experimented with marginal, often provocative art-happenings
and events. Newspaperman embodies Arahmaiani’s early experimentation with local and international artistic
movements, namely, the late 1960s Fluxus and Indonesia’s New Art Movement of the 1970s. As a member of
Kelompok Jeprut, she frequently organized and took part in street events and performances at shopping malls
and other public spaces. Newspaperman was a work in reaction to the constrained freedom of expression during
the New Order era in Indonesia.

The definition of art must be expanded – as wide as it possibly can be! — Arahmaiani
Leeza Ahmady. Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement 2014.

The Flower, 1982
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
The artist had a stone platform constructed below ground level, suggestive of the bases of ancient Hindu andBuddhist temples occasionally unearthed in Yogyakarta, where she silently meditated for some time. The
performance evoked Java’s Hinu-Buddhist-Animist spiritual traditions and their continued legacy.

Offering from A-Z, 1996
Padaeng Crematorium, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Offerings from A–Z is made up of a series of performances taking place at a Buddhist temple in Chiangmai,
Thailand, questioning the growing problem of prostitution in Asia. The artist, lying on an actual site used to crematebodies, also distributed pages from pornographic magazines to audiences. These pages were set on fire as a typeof ritual offering, thus establishing an unsettling connection between religious beliefs and the profane, between
tradition and social realities. In another piece, Arahmaiani covered herself with white sheets stained with blood.
Lining both sides, there were offering plates and two rows of weapons. The blood representing violence and, at thesame time, a metaphor for the duality that women in Asia face: praised and respected for their fertility and, yet,discriminated against for their menstruation by being prohibited access to the temples and holy sites.
“Offerings from A-Z, (2),” Re.Act.Feminism - A Performing Archive. Online Resource.

Burning Bodies, Burning Countries, 1998
Musée de Castieva, Almaty, Kazakhstan
The piece refers to a specific incident when four students were killed during a demonstration against the Suharto
regime in May 1998. As a consequence there were riots and pillaging, mostly directed against the IndonesianChinese population. Some 1,500 people were victims of a three-day-terror with hundreds of women raped.
Haupt & Binder, “Arahmaiani,” Nafas Art Magazine, 2003.

His-story, 2000
Premiered at Jakarta International Performance Art Festival; toured Germany & Japan 2003
This performance work is closely aligned to Michel Foucault’s influential notion of the body as a corporeal objectof surveillance. Arahmaiani, however, locates this theory within the context of her own wide-ranging personal
experiences, emphasizing how the body “becomes a battlefield for political struggles and conflicts of interests.”
Zening Wang, “New Trajectories: Arahmaiani in Yogyakarta,” C-Arts, May/June 2008.

Lapen Wedding, 2004
Kedai Kebun Forum, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Lapen, a cheap alcoholic drink, was served to guests in a mock wedding party with Arahmaiani as the brideand her male groom dressed in wedding costumes fashioned after the different flags of the twenty-six politicalparties running for election at the time in Indonesia. The wedding party, and drunkenness, are both metaphorsfor the grand imaging campaigns launched by politicians to hypnotize their constituent masses, producing an
overwhelming sense of euphoria that leads to collective submission. Arahmaiani confronts the more detrimental
aspect of such hysterical campaigns, whereby politicians themselves become drunks, hypnotized by the power of
their own bluff at the expense of citizens. Similar to the way poor families often take on debilitating debts to put
on elaborate weddings just to keep up with social appearance.

Art is a “tool” to examine and assess reality, and can be employed by anyone, anytime, and anywhere!
— Arahmaiani
Leeza Ahmady. Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement 2014.

Soho Baby, 2004
2nd Dadao Live Art Festival, Beijing, China
In Soho Baby, Arahmaiani invites the participation of local audiences — at a fundamental level replicating the(mis-)exchanges that take place between people of different races and nationalities in a globalized world. She
begins by inscribing Jawi characters on herself, delineating the essential markers of religious and linguistic
identity that successful navigation in a globalized world demands. By Arahmaiani’s own account, some of the texts
qualify only as scribblings; these are to be interpreted as a desire to complexify the clichés and stereotypes sooften employed in attempts to bridge differences. Audience members then take turns writing words meaningful
to them on parts of her body until it becomes a dense, living canvas, ridden with collective projections of societal
values. Yet not one particular value is imbued or specifically absorbed; all of them are only skin-deep. The key
question that emerges: are there universals underlying the diversity of appearances and values that we encounterin our daily lives?
Zening Wang, “New Trajectories: Arahmaiani in Yogyakarta,” C-Arts, May/June 2008.

Learning to Swing, 2005
Part of the artist’s solo exhibition entitled Lecture on Painting, Part I, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Having recently experienced a great sense of appreciation for grayness in German landscapes, literally, andas a painterly discipline, Arahmaiani arrived in Malaysia’s lush green environment, feeling as though she were
swinging between two worlds. She staged a golf match inside the gallery to convey this feeling as a setting forher “lecture” on painting, in the form of a performance which incorporated a number of gray paintings onto which
she rendered a series of terminologies connecting words to one another in a set of strange but alluring grids
and geometric diagrams. Learning to Swing essentially is a commentary on the way art is marketed and sold.
A deciphering of rhetoric that veils “market fundamentalism, exploitation, monopoly, and market terrorism.”
By translating the medium of painting into a performance work, the artist attempts to “transform the individual‘product’ of painting for the commercial art world into a complex question of authorship and its marketability.”
Leeza Ahmady, Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement, 2014.

Flag / Bendera
Rostock, Germany, 2006; Borobudur, Central Java, and Merapi, Indonesia 2007; Nagano, Japan, andSydney, Australia 2007; Shenzhen, China & Singapore 2008; Esplanade, Singapore 2009; and KaliOpak, Indonesia 2010
The Flag/Bendera project is a series of community-involved performances in which select locally significant phrases
and words are inscribed on fabric, with either Arabic script or fonts used by multinational corporations. Quietly
mimicking today’s global obsession with brand-culture, the flags are then waved about in marches, celebrations,and other choreographed gatherings at various historical, contemporary, or environmentally significant public
spaces. The series began with Arahmaiani designing just one flag with the Arabic-derived Indonesian word akal,
which means “sense” or “cunning,” and has evolved into multiple flags with various subtitles, including theiteration at Esplanade Theatres in Singapore, entitled: I Love You – After Joseph Beuys Social Sculpture, 2009.
This community based art project is a sustainable artwork that I designed with the intention and the goal of studying
and developing collective creativity, because modern societies put more emphasis on individual creativity. I implementan “open art system” where the definition of art is expanded as wide as possible so that it might cover various thingsand have inter-disciplinary characteristics and be able to make breakthroughs within rigid discourses and establishedvalues. Besides implementing the principles of democratic dialogue, I also employ a critical approach wheneverneeded. — Arahmaiani

Leeza Ahmady, Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement, 2014.

Breaking Words, 2006
Tokyo and Toyama, Japan
Breaking Words confronts personal and cultural differences through questioning the concept of so-called“truth.” In a poetic call-and-response fashion, audience members offered key words in their lives, which werethen written on plates, and then smashed to the ground by the artist. The work calls attention to a reckoning withmental traps that are set by virtue of all belief systems, societal conditionings, and even education. All of which
effect tribulations and failures in cross-cultural interaction. This reality was wryly brought out in an iteration of
the performance in Kuala Lampur when an audience member was offended that a plate with the word “Allah”(meaning “God”) written on it was smashed. As a result, the police shut down the Satu Kali festival, in which theperformance took place.
Leeza Ahmady, Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement, 2014.

Handle Without Care, 2006
An iteration of this iconic performance was held on top of a hill where the artist, clad in an elaborate quasitraditional outfit, performed Balinese dance movements around a white circle painted on the ground with a large
Coca-Cola bottle placed in the middle. Wearing a striking pair of black sunglasses and holding plastic toy guns in
her hands, she incorporates the props into her dance ritual as if in worship. Midway through her performance, she
begins to vigorously shake the Coke bottle, which eventually opens in an explosion of pent-up carbonation. A CD
player played mantras mixed with gunfire sounds, producing a cacophony of sound and mesmerizing ambiance.

Art is an autonomous zone - a self-standing discourse and narrative, the interests of the market, politics or religion
cannot dictate to it. Businessmen, politicians and religious leaders are not creators of art! — Arahmaiani
Leeza Ahmady, Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement, 2014.

Stitching the Wound, 2006
The Art Center at the Jim Thompson House, Bangkok, Thailand
Arahmaiani’s Bangkok project Stitching the Wound, actively involving young women from the Baan Krua weaving
community, focuses on Muslim issues as a basis for a broader exploration of marginalization, identity andcommunication. Through interactive performance organized in close proximity with members of the Muslim Baan
Krua enclave, Arahmaiani took aim at the assumptions and stereotypes that are often responsible for fanning theflames of misunderstanding and fear at the heart of contemporary Muslim/non-Muslim relations in Southeast
Asia, and beyond. The artist, a Javanese Muslim, is also concerned with the weight given to symbols associatedwith religion that are read and mis-read in such a way as to distort the essence of faith both for its practitioners
and those outside its tenets.
Excerpt from the press release for the Stitching the Wound exhibition at The Art Center at the Jim Thompson
House, Bangkok, Thailand, 2006.

Stigmata, 2007
Japan
Stigmata was a performance in response to the new global politics between the Islamic world and the West (orAmerica in particular). It addresses the position of an individual Muslim woman in a polarized post-September
11th world, where Arahmaiani found herself referred to more and more as a Muslim woman artist, rather thanan artist.
Art is a combination of courage, rebellion, rational and moral intelligence, and the conscience.
— Arahmaiani
Leeza Ahmady. Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement 2014.

Produk Gertoli, 2008
Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Arahmaiani’s Produk Gertoli provides both local and universal readings. On a parochial level, through humor andsatire, the work is a critique of environmental destruction in Indonesia. Interpreted more broadly, the images
also offer a message of empowerment, prompting viewers to think for themselves about power and society. The
painted backdrop depicts a recent environmental disaster in Indonesia.
Excerpt from a 2009 press release from Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore. Online Resource.

Dutch Wife, 2013
Suspended Histories, Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam
In a group exhibition for Museum Van Loon, artists were asked to reflect on the role of the Van Loon family in the
Dutch East India Company. Arahmaiani’s installation consists of self portrait photographs presented in formal
portrait frames within the setting of a seemingly traditional colonial home, next to official portraits of the Van
Loon Family throughout the museum. She is depicted as a suppressed wife, calling attention to ideas of colonial
slavery in a modern day context (namely, the condition of migrant Indonesian women workers in Europe, Asia,and the Middle East).

Suspended Histories, Museum Van Loon, 2013. Online Resource.
“Art & Everyday Life: Suspended Histories,” Mister Motley, 2013. Online Resource.

Memory of Nature, 2013
Installation and Performance, Art Stage, Singapore
This work is based on the artist’s on-going project addressing her various environmental concerns on the Tibetan
Plateau. Memory of Nature symbolizes Ahrahmaiani’s collaboration with Tibetan monks, which entails themonks’ active and physical participation in reconstructing their agricultural ecology, and transformation of theirsurrounding landscapes. The installation consisted of a large mandala assembled from natural materials – soil
and living plants placed on the floor. The artist waved about and over the mandala a large flag with a yellow lotus
flower imprint on its center, referencing her signature work from the past decade known as The Flags Series. At
the end of the performance, she rakes up the mandala, as a Tibetan monk would traditionally do. Presenting thepiece at a commercial art fair referenced the artist’s belief that all spaces can become arenas for contemplation
about the world, its problems, nature, and spirituality.

Although we are orientated forward, our art remembers and considers the past and the present.
— Arahmaiani
Leeza Ahmady, Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind, Curatorial Statement 2014.

Violence No More, 2013
Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, dfb gallery, Chicago; also performed in Singapore
Dressed in red Arahmaiani enters a dark gallery filled with unlit candles placed in a circle where the participants
sit. Arahmaiani lies flat on the ground, face down and propels herself in a circular motion by the thrust of her foot.
As she pushes herself across the floor, she forcefully blows out a hard breath that seems to provide momentum.
She rises to her feet and walks to light a candle. Afterwards, she places it in the palm of an audience member’shand. She then lies back down only to strenuously repeat the painstaking process again until the circle of candles
are all burning. The emotionally felt performance embodied the concept of inclusiveness. As Arahmaiani handed
a candle to an audience member, the makeshift barrier between audience and artist no longer existed. Instead, acircle united was formed. As she lit every candle and offered it to a chosen audience member, a tangible feelingof solidarity was produced. Aligned with her activism, Arahmaiani’s performance aimed to foster peace.
Megan Owoc, “Arahmaiani Violence No More,” Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, 2013.

Warm Zone, 2013
Singapore
In Warm Zone, similar in spirit to Violence No More, audience members were given lit candles, this time inviting
them to express themselves however they wished in that moment.

ARAHMAIANISELECTED BIOGRAPHYGROUP EXHIBITIONS

Born 1961 in Bandung, Indonesia. Lives and works in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia.

2013
Suspended Histories, Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam, theNetherlands.
Women In Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012, Mie
Prefectural Museum of Art, Mie, Japan; and Tochigi Prefectural
Museum of Fine Art, Tochigi, Japan.

EDUCATION
1992
BFA, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia.
1985
Paddington Art School, Sydney, Australia.
1983
Academie voor Beeldende Kunst, Enschede, the Netherlands.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014
Fertility of the Mind, Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York, NY, USA.
2013
The Grey Paintings, Equator ArtProjects, Singapore.
2009
I Love You (After Joseph Beuys Social Sculpture), Esplanade,Singapore.
2008
Slow Down
Indonesia.

Bro, Jogya

National

Museum,Yogyakarta,

2007
Make-Up or Break-Up, Artspace Sydney, Australia.
2006
Stitching the Wound, Jim Thompson Gallery, Bangkok,
Thailand.
2005
Lecturing on Painting, Valentine Willie Gallery, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
2004
Wedding Party (LAPEN Wedding), Kedai Kebun Forum,
Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Un-titled, PSI Confrence #10, Singapore.
Soho Baby, 2nd Dadao Live Art Festival, Beijing, China.
Breaking Words, Nagano Expo, Japan.
Breaking Words, FIX04 Belfast, Ireland.
2003
Fusion & Strength, Gallery Benda, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
MIP (International Performance Manifestation), Belo Horizonte,
Brazil.
2002
Visit to My World, Asian Fine Arts Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
1999
Dayang Sumbi: Refuses Status Quo, CCF Bandung, Indonesia.
Rape & Rob, Millennium Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1993
Sex, Religion, and Coca Cola, Oncor Studio, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1987
My Dog is Dead and then He Flew, Centre Culturelle Française,
Bandung, Indonesia.

2012
Lost in China, Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia.
Marcel Duchamp in Southeast Asia, Equator ArtProjects,
Singapore.
Women In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012, Fukuoka
Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan.
Edge of Elsewhere 2012, Campbelltown Arts Centre,
Campbelltown, Australia; and 4A Centre for Contemporary
Asian Art, Sydney, Australia.
2011
Edge of Elsewhere, Gallery 4A Sydney Festival, Australia.
Crossing Point, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.
Thread Stitching Wounds, Yogya Biennale, Yogyakarta,
Indonesia.
I Love You, Richmond Center for the Arts, Kalamazoo, MI, USA.
Flag Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China.
Home, Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia.
2010
Edge of Elsewhere, Sydney Festival, Sydney.
Contemporaneity, MOCA Shanghai, China.
Tough Love, Gallery Plataforma Revolver, Lisbon, Portugal.
My Grandmother’s House, Museum Bochum, Bochum,
Germany.
I Love You, Ana Tzarev Gallery, New York, NY, USA.
Crossing and Blurring the Boundaries, Andi’s Gallery, Jakarta.
Summer Now 2010, Canvas International Art, Amsterdam.
UNERWARTET/UNEXPECTED, Von der islamischen Kunst
zur zeitgenössischen Kunst Kunstmuseum Bochum –Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Edge of Elsewhere, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art,
Sydney, Australia.
Installation I, Sydney Festival, Campbelltown Art Centre,
Campbelltown, Australia.
2009
No More Bad Girls, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Austria.
My Body, Andi’s Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Awareness, Canvas International Art, Amsterdam, theNetherlands.
2008
3rd International Calligraphy Biennale, Sharjah, United ArabEmirates.
Die Wahren Orte, Alexander Ochs Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
Strategies Towards the Real, NUS, Singapore.
2007
Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY,USA.
Art Goes Heilligendamm, Rostock, Germany.
Balance, Bad Doberan, Germany.
Premonition, J&Z Gallery, Shenzhen, China.

2005
INTOENNE Festival, Austria.
Magnetism – Suspension, Zendai Museum of Modern Art,
Shanghai, China.
2004
Twilight Tomorrow, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.
Reformasi, Sculpture Square, Singapore.
Asian Traffic, Gallery 4A, Sydney, Australia.
Art Summit, National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia.
SENI, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.
2003
The Rest of The World, Pirmasens, Germany.
11 June 2003, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.
Don’t Call it Performance Art, Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid,
Spain; and Andalusia Center for Contemporary Art, Seville,
Spain.
Transit, Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art,
Australia.
10th Biennale of Moving Image, Geneva, Switzerland.
2002
AWAS! Recent Art from Indonesia, Asian Fine Arts Gallery,
Berlin, Germany.
Text & Subtext, Sternersen Musset, Oslo, Norway.
Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil.
Gwangju Biennale, South Korea.
Site + Sight, Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore.
Upstream Project, Amsterdam & Hoorn, the Netherlands.
2001
His-story on My Body, Hillside Terrace Gallery, Tokyo Japan.
2000
His-story on My Body, Text & Sub-text, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore;and Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Corporeal
Apology, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France; and Werkleitz Biennale,
Germany.
Le Petit du Chaperon Rooge, Le Ferme Du Biusson, Paris,
France.
The Dog’s Dream, ISP Open Studio, Tribeca, New York, NY, USA.
1999
Burning Bodies, Burning Countries II, Cultural Centre Philippines(CCP), Manila, the Philippines.
Made In Indonesia No. I, – Un Ab Die Post, Postfuhramt Berlin,
Germany.
Newspaper Man II, Semanggi Café, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Cities On the Move, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk,Denmark; and Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
1998
Instalasi Gawat Darurat Pembangunan, 4+4 Begegnung, Purna
Budaya, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Traditions/Tensions, Western Australia Museum of Contemporary
Art, Perth, Australia.
Plastic & Other Waste (First Asia-Pacific Artist Solidarity
Project), Center for the Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok,
Thailand.
Cities on The Move, Museum of Contemporary Art, Vienna
Secession, Austria; Musée de l’Art
Contemporaine de Bordeaux, France; and P.S. I Contemporary
Art Center, New York, NY, USA.
Traditions/Tensions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei,
Taiwan.
Burning Bodies, Burning Country, Musée de Castieva, Almaty,
Kazakhstan.

1997
Womanifesto: Don’t Prevent the Fertility of Mind, ConcreteHouse, Bangkok, Thailand.
Sacred Coke – Cosmology of Mutilation, VI Biennale de la
Habana, Havana, Cuba.
Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions, Vancouver
Gallery, Vancouver, Canada.
White Cases, Glimpses into the Future, Art from Southeast
Asia, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; andHiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima,
Japan.
1996
Offerings from A to Z, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Nation for Sale, Asia-Pacific Triennial, Brisbane, Australia.
Traditions/Tensions, Asia Society, New York, NY, USA.
1995
A Piece of Land for Sale, Artists Regional Exchange (ARX), Perth,
Australia.
Sacred Coke, Contemporary Art from Non-aligned Countries,
National Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Coke Circle, Claremont Art School, Perth, Australia.
1994
5+5 Indonesian & Dutch Artists, Purna Budaya, Yogyakarta,
Indonesia; and Erasmus Huis, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Indonesia in Emergency Aid, Yogyakarta Biennial, Purna Budaya,
Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
1993
Four Faces, Biennal IX, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1992
From Pieces to Become One-Homage to Joseph Beuys,
Enschede, the Netherlands.
1984
Fibre Art and Design, Sydney Textile Museum, Sydney,
Australia.
1983
Independent Feast, Bandung, Indonesia.
1980
Accident I, Bandung, Indonesia.
SELECTED PERFORMANCES
2013
Memory of Nature, Art Stage Singapore, Singapore.
2011
Crossing Point, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore.
Breaking Words, Richmond Centre for the Arts, Kalamazoo, MI,
USA.
2010
Violence No More, On Edge, Cairns, Australia.
Flag/Benera, Kali Opak, Indonesia.
2009
I Love You (After Joseph Beuys Social Sculpture), Esplanade,Singapore.

Breaking Words, Woodford Folk Festival, Brisbane, Australia.
Flag/Bendera, Esplanade, Singapore.
2008
Breaking Words, Sillman University, Dumaguette,
Philippines.
Produk Gertoli, Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Flag/Bendera, Shenzhen, China and Singapore.

the

2007
His-story on My Body, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Flag/Bendera, Borobudur, Central Java, and Merapi, Indonesia;
Nagano, Japan; Sydney, Australia.
Toyota Era, Matsushiro Samurai School, Nagano, Japan.
Breaking Words, Davis Museum, Boston, MA, USA.
Stigmata, Japan.
2006
Dancing Stitches, JT House, Bangkok, Thailand.
Breaking Words, Satu Kali, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Breaking Words, FOI, Singapore.
Breaking Words, Tokyo, Toyama, Japan.
Flag Performance 1, Rostock, Germany.
2005
Learning to Swing, Valentine Willie Gallery, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
We Are Not Hungry, Ambulance International Performance Art
Festival, Jakarta, Indonesia
2004
Wedding Party (LAPEN Wedding), Kedai Kebun Forum, Yogyakarta,
Indonesia.
Un-titled, PSI Conference #10, Singapore.
Soho Baby, 2nd Dadao Live Art Festival, Beijing, China.
Breaking Words, Nagano Expo, Nagano, Japan.
Breaking Words, FIX04, Belfast, Ireland.
2003
Fusion & Strength, Gallery Benda, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
MIP (International Performance Manifestation), Belo Horizonte,
Brazil.
Don’t Call it Performance Art, Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid,
Spain; and Andalusia Center for Contemporary Art, Seville,
Spain.
2002
Visit to My World, Asian Fine Arts Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
2001
His-story (III), Ist Woman Performance Art Festival, Osaka,
Japan.
His-story (III), Hillside Terrace, Tokyo, Japan.
Violence – Hate No More, 3rd Performance Biennale, Israel.
Violence No More, Indonesia – Japan Exchange 2001. Bandung,
Yogyakarta, and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Violence No More, Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany.
Violence No More, Edsvik, Solentuna, Sweden.
Violence No More, Odense Performance Festival, Denmark.
Tell Me the Story, Za Hall, Tokyo, Japan; Japan Society, New York,NY, USA; and Shiga Museum, Osaka, Japan.
2000
His-story (II), Werkleitz Biennale, Werkleitz, Germany.
His-story (II), Funkhouse, Dresden, Germany.
His-story, Jakarta International Performance Art Festival (JIPAF
2000), Jakarta, Indonesia.
His-story, NIPAF 2000, Taipei, Nagano, Nagoya, Tokyo, Japan.

1999
Show Me Your Heart, Und Ab Die Post, Postfuhramt Berlin,
Germany.
Burning Bodies, Burning Countries II, Cultural Centre Phillipines(CCF), Manila, the Philippines.
Newspaperman, Semanggi Café, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Dayang Sumbi Refuses Status Quo, France Cultural Center,(CCF) Bandung, Indonesia.
1998
Burning Bodies, Burning Country, Musee de Castieva, Almaty,
Kazakhstan.
Art Festival ’98, Nagano, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Tokyo, Japan.
Festival de Winternachten, the Hague, the Netherlands.
Show Me Your Heart, Nippon International Performance Art
Festival, Asian Series, Nagano, Nagoya, Tokyo, Japan.
Show Me Your Heart, JAXPA 98: Festival of Asian Performance
Art I, Bangkok, Thailand.
Show Me Your Heart, Cemara 6 Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia; andJamzz, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1997
Do Not Prevent the Fertility of Mind, Concrete House, Bangkok,
Thailand.
Handle without Care IV, Havana, Cuba.
Handle without Care, Who Cares?, Museum of Contemporary
Art Tokyo, Tokyo.
Point Zero – My Mind Gets Stuck, Marsi Gallery, Bangkok,
Thailand.
1996
Offering from A to Z, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Handle without Care I, Brisbane, Australia.
Handle without Care II – You Love Me, You Love Me Not, Z
Gallery, New York, NY, USA.
Handle without Care III, Maga City, Bangkok, Thailand.
Don Giovanni, Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria.
Raised by Wolves, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth,
Australia.
1995
Friday Sermon, Claremont Art School, Australia.
1994
Frangipani on Water, with musician Wayan Sadra, Mojosongo,
Solo, Indonesia.
1993
Four Faces, Biennale IX, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1992
Uwek-uwek, Ismail Marzuki Art Center, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1990
Knocking the Door, Malioboro Street, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
1987
My Dog is Dead and then He Flew, Centre Culturelle Française,
Bandung, Indonesia.
1982
Black Bamboo and White Cloth, Bandung, Indonesia.
The Flower, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
1981
Newspaperman, Bandung, Indonesia.
1980
Accident , Bandung, Indonesia.

Reflections of a nomad dreamer
Arahmaiani

I was born and raised in an environment where various cultures and religious beliefs coexisted peacefully. My
ancestors were Animists, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims. They assimilated influences from without and produced
a hybrid culture. A culture that open-heartedly accepts all that is different and takes the good aspects of all faiths,
on the basis of a clear and firm platform which is: humanity.
The place I am referring to is located in the tropical zone and was in the past known as the “emeralds of the equator”
because of its beauty. The soil was fertile and rich in natural resources, and anything planted would almost always
flourish. Food was not difficult to come by because the fertile soil produced abundant harvests and animal stock
faced no shortage of food. Not to mention the vast seas that of course brought the blessing of sustenance andwealth. The weather in this country never reaches extreme points – the heat is not too hot and the cold does not
torture one. The two seasons that come one after another – dry and wet – do not affect the temperature in any major
way. This means that people do not need to busy themselves preparing for the changes in the weather. Life goes on
comfortably with only a little adjustment.
But the tides of time and life often do not stay the same; they rise and fall and change their nature, and are also
susceptible to destruction and mortality. So the history of life shows different faces, although sometimes a face thatappears is similar to one before it. It forms a cycle that does not end, which is at the same time eternally in change.
There is an essential life force that always revitalizes itself and also regularly finds its peak to then drop down low
until it reaches the bottom and meets its destruction. But this also then appears again to push and give birth to newlife and forms a sustainable cycle that no one knows when it will be cut or when it will end.
Now, in this birthplace of mine, the situation has changed to present a saddening face. It is as if there is a curse onlife here. Forests have been razed to the ground; most trees have been felled. Water and the air are polluted. All
this has occurred because of the actions of mankind. The result is that disaster after disaster falls upon us. Floods
are everywhere; earthquakes happen more often on ever more massive scales. Tsunamis, landslides, hurricanes
and volcanic eruptions that are out of character and unpredictable. Victims fall left and right, some die, some arewounded, and more lose their homes. Adding up their number would probably reach several millions. True, thisregion is also known to be on the “Ring of Fire” where three continental plates collide to make this place vulnerable
to earthquakes and give birth to at least one hundred and twenty six volcanoes.
Nowadays rivers are full of waste and packed with garbage. Many water sources in Asia have dried up and died; if
not, chemicals pollute them. The Yangtze, the Mekong, the Yellow River, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra– all these rivers are sourced in Tibet, the country also known as the Roof of the World. The continuous life of two
billion people in Asia depends on these rivers. Besides pollution, another issue to be alert to is the melting of theglaciers and the permafrost, which each day gets worse and worse. At first this will bring about floods and deluges,
and this has already begun – but later water will become scarce and rivers will run dry as a bone. Many lakes
have experienced a fall in their water debit and some have even dried up. It is not too difficult to imagine what will
happen and what the fate of the two billion people will be if draught hits. Besides that, desertification has alreadyhappened and slowly but surely the areas affected are becoming wider and wider. If the ecological balance of thevulnerable “Third Pole”, which is the plateau of Tibet, is disturbed, it will be certain that there will be a widespreadand dangerous impact for the whole planet.
In my country, much land has become dry and no longer fertile, because of mining and the felling of forests. Somesoil has become hardened like cement and polluted by chemical materials that spread through the long-term usageof synthetic fertilizers. The impacts of global climate change are becoming more obvious. Recently there have often
been weather anomalies, and in several areas there has been rain all year round. This has caused crop failure, andpeople have been forced to change their planting patterns. So the already low national food production because of
the dependency on imports decreases even more each day. Prices rocket and the poor and almost poor fall deeper
into difficulties. The rise of world oil prices and the prolonged political crisis in North Africa and the Middle East willof course aggravate the situation.

Besides all that, another no less worrying thing is the condition of the people themselves. Their mental, intellectualand spiritual life has plummeted in obvious ways. The leaders of the State and the nation, who should be able tobecome beacons of hope and providers of protection, cannot in anyway be depended on and are unworthy of trust.
They hurt people’s feelings, they deceive and steal. They have thrown away the mandate that the people gave them.
Lightly and without any burden they commit crimes: bribe the law enforcers and security apparatus, manipulate
things and misappropriate rules. They busy themselves in filling their coffers and try to make their power everlasting– they are busy with themselves and their cronies. They have no concern whatsoever for the people that elected
them to fulfill a job and a responsibility. The State offers no protection; it is truly disappointing.
The beauty of life that I experienced in my childhood has been forcefully and violently wrenched away. Life has
become a nightmare, prolonged and merciless. Human relations used to be animated by the heart but nowadays,
even though there is more knowledge available, people’s relationships are more characterized by mutual efforts tocheat each other and make profit. It is as if the beautiful garden that was once tended to together has been overgrownby wild weeds, and the living beings there hunt each other. People become anxious, unhappy and insecure. They
have lost trust in their fellow human beings and are imprisoned in their own worlds. The direction and the goal oflife has become a murky sketch that cannot be defined to become a clear picture that radiates beauty.
All this has become a burden that I feel in my heart. To be honest, not all is pitch dark, there is always a prick oflight that becomes hope. I can still see a rainbow decorating the gloomy sky. And I remember the times when mygrandfather taught and trained me to dance in the dark in silence without music or song. At that time I did notunderstand and asked why it had to be repeated over and over. My grandfather’s answer was short and concise: sothat you will be able to dance alone in the dark accompanied by the music and the rhythm of your heart.
Maybe he had understood the signs of changing times – if you do not follow the current in life you will end up allalone in darkness and quiet. So he provided me with something that would prepare me to endure this path. Or maybe
he understood the path of my fate and was preparing me to be steadfast in my lonesome and solitary life so that in
the end I might reach the destination safely. Ah, life is full of mysteries, and not all can be understood rationally andempirically. Besides, there are also things that have yet to be understood by the “modern” way of thinking. I feelthat modern man must be able to humbly acknowledge that not all things and issues in this life are understood. Heshould also understand that essentially he does not hold a prerogative right to conquer and control nature, let alone
to deny the right to life of other beings.
The truth is that I often do not understand why modern man seems to be so over confident in his conviction that
there will be an answer to all problems. Relying on science and technology, the modern man holds the view that all
problems will find a solution. Ancient cultures that are considered “primitive” are swept aside, and communal life
appears to be incompatible with the spirit of individual “invention,” those geniuses and bearers of change in life. I
do not wholly question this conviction – but when we look at what has happened now, how science and technology
has been employed to exploit nature and all it contains, the over confident faith in this capacity surely needs to bechallenged.
Now the results are clear and obvious and need no more argument – social disintegration and environmental
destruction, partly caused by the impacts of climate change and global warming, trigger more problems, moredisasters. Life is threatened by destruction, and steps to avert this must be taken. It is not the time now for lectures
and theories, for the call is for real action to save this life. It appears that the free market system has become
too free, and it tends to encourage the destruction to be ever faster and ever more massive. Besides, the overdependency on fossil fuels also only makes the situation ever more perilous, because the natural resources that theearth has are finite – and much is non-renewable.
In my country there are also many religious leaders who do not understand how to think and act wisely. Theirambition is to become politicians and get involved in bribery and corruption. They are hungry for power and money;
they forget their tasks and obligations. Religion is employed to achieve and sustain the power they crave. Thatis how it is here, normally; politicians are full of rhetoric and small talk. They use politics merely as a beast of
burden. Shamelessly they wear the mask of hypocrisy, they are two faced. Their behavior and actions are often very
embarrassing. On the one side they exhibit an image of a religious person, on the other side they lie and steal. They
turn the values of truth up side down with the excuse of protecting the integrity of religion. For that they can tolerate
and justify violence, even murder!
How I long for religious practice that is gentle and tolerant. A religious life that does not employ threats and giveshumanity an opportunity to be honest and boldly be one’s self, accountable for one’s ways and actions. A religious
life that can transcend the standards of black and white, “good and evil,” “right and wrong,” and can offer an
opportunity to mankind to understand the meaning of life and the word wisdom. Besides that I also long for thepractice of faith that places women on a respected place that is equal to their male partners. Do not discriminate
against women anymore; do not place them as merely servants and objects of pleasure. I always want to thinkpositively, and I believe that the intentions of religion are always benign, and that it is man’s interpretation that gives
mistaken, deviating meanings that support and justify his lusts.
Furthermore, in my country currently religion is even used as a tool to wipe out minorities. There was a very saddening
event not so long ago. Three Ahmadiyah followers were tortured and killed. I saw for myself a video of how brutallyand sadistically they were done away with. My tears fell watching it. The murderers justified their actions by claimingthat they were protecting Islam from deviations which justified their barbaric and inhumane actions. In the nameof God and religion human life has been snuffed out forcibly – honestly, I ask: what religion is this? God’s name has
been misused for evil so that now God and religion have become sources of hatred and atrocities. With this situation
maybe God would be happy to just die, if with that mankind could once again experience love and mercy for eachother.
The concept and approach of the “Middle Way” that doesn’t polarize right and wrong is important to me. It does notemphasize the attitude of fighting against passions but tries to understand them and find ways to manage, control,and correctly place them. So it doesn’t take the extreme path of vehement rejection, but also doesn’t let passions
loose unbridled. Also the natural way of looking at the body is important to me. The body should not be seen as thesource of shame and sin, so that sex can be put in its natural place and not be burdened by negative thoughts ofdirtiness. It should be seen more as a liberating activity and a means to achieve the spiritual union of the feminineand masculine energies. Women need not be seen as temptresses who cause men to fall into Hell.
I think that modern man needs to have his thoughts “stood on their head.” When a belief and a faith becomesdogmatic in nature, or when it becomes merely “blind faith” where rationality merely seems to be working, thensomething wrong also begins to happen. Whatever the name of that faith, religion or ideology can become stuck; it
can decay, and strangle life, because it becomes inflexible and rigid – not liquid and flowing like water. It will become
coercive, and it will tend to bring difficulties. Modern man, who is so confident and believes that his thought andlogical system can never be wrong, appears to have fallen in to a trap: he is over confident in his faith that the world
can be controlled by rationality. The market system and ideology that is vulnerable to crisis but believed as a religion,
apparently has trapped him. And it has been proven that these market fundamentalists bring so much complication,
only make a few wealthy, and bring poverty to the majority of the earth’s population, and even create war.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of a silent night and I ponder on the meaning of life and this existence. The
darkness of the sky and the silence of nature take me to thoughts of death. I think that there is no one who does notfear this reality – that life has an end and the reality of leaving our loved ones brings sadness. This is the reality;
there is nothing fixed and permanent in life. Like a butter sculpture exposed to heat will melt and change its form or
become liquid and evaporate, losing its form altogether.
Modern man’s lifestyle tends to emphasize the material world. The reality of death seems to be taken merely as theend of a process of transaction. There is nothing sacred and nothing holy anymore. The purpose of life is to achieve
everything here and now because after death all is finished. So there is no use to waste time or energy thinking about
it. Remember, time is money! And money is the source of power and the source of all pleasure. Man is considered to
be stupid and idiotic if he doesn’t think that way. This is the modern world that is considered to be progressive, but
in reality it has become decadent.
I believe that from pure thoughts and pure hearts brilliant ideas that will bring benefit to life will emerge. And I
believe that this is the essence of creativity that can liberate mankind and life from the grips of sadness and suffering,
besides bringing mankind to recognize and to be capable of experiencing real happiness. As a creative worker I feelthat I really and truly want to understand it. I want to transcend the understanding of individual creativity that only
revolves around one’s self, which usually is then re-represented by the market, collected and finishes there. Is it truethat collective creativity is dead? And if it is considered dead can it be resurrected? This is the essence of the matterthat I have been struggling with for at least the past two decades.
Perhaps these are merely the thoughts and ideas of a nomad dreamer. But because I dream and maybe also havetoo many illusions, I have met and worked with various marginal communities in various countries. From villagecommunities in the Bantul district and the slopes of Merapi, to communities in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines,
China, and Aborigines in Australia. I believe that all the occupants of this planet have the right to live in their own
ways as long as they do not infringe on others.
When the dominant system gets stuck and is threatened by failure, everything starts to be questioned. Those whohave been marginalized because their values in life are considered to be incompatible now seem to have a place andare able to negotiate. This is the time for the oppressed to hold hands, even though no one knows exactly what theanswer to the current problems faced by the world is. No one can give an exact answer to the question regarding
what system of living would be suitable for the future. There is no single answer that can be applicable for all theoccupants of planet earth. Apparently the most realistic is that each community and cultural unit must find a way to
become self sufficient – while at the same time cooperate with other communities to create a system that supports
living in harmony with nature so that the ecological balance is not put at risk.
The tendency of those who are in power and are dominant is to force all parties into submission – even more so if
the other is rich in natural resources. Many ways will be used to conquer them. They will have no qualms in being
hypocrites and practicing double standards to achieve their ambitions. The right to life of the weak will be overruled;
if they are not eliminated they will be forced into poverty. Yes, apparently politicians everywhere are the same; on
one side they present an image of piety and culture but on the other they act unnaturally and are often deceitful.
But in reality the weak survive. It seems that mankind must always struggle with power and should not tire of it.
Unsurprisingly, the Muslim youth are now rising and confronting the oppression of the dictators who have become
the extension of foreign powers from the West. The crisis in the strategic areas of the Middle East and North Africa
apparently will push for change in the world. Those who are established and in power but act unjustly and arbitrarily
will be confronted. There is only one opportunity to take for those who wish to remain in power: to change the system
to be more transparent and to uphold social justice for their society.
A decade ago when the bombing of the World Trade Center by the so-called Muslim terrorists happened, the world was
shaken by a political earthquake that polarized the world into the West and Islam. The world’s Muslim communities
were stigmatized and tarred with the same brush as followers of a violent religion of terrorism. I understand this is aconstructed notion and not the reality. Since the flowering of the Iranian Revolution, the Western media have actively
constructed an ugly image of Islam and its adherents. But in reality, research presents proof that the majority ofMuslims are the moderates, and they do not like violence, do not hate Westerners, and also do not consider theirreligion to be a religion that tolerates violence.
Also with the accusations against Iraq as a producer of weapons of mass-destruction that was used as the pretext of
the invasion and the occupation, in reality there was never any proof that was found. Indeed politics tends to resemble
a mud hole and power tends to be full of deceit and falsehood. This sort of thing always happens again and again invarious places through out mankind’s history. Meanwhile, on the other side, the radical Islamist groups make useof the situation for their own interests; they also do not hesitate to destroy and murder. So the international politicalstage today is a stage soaked with the blood of victims who often have no clue of the issues. So unfair treatment
by one person to another, or one group to another, is currently normal. An ethical attitude is not considered to beimportant.
The assumption and the theory that so far has been developed in the West that says that the Islamic world anddemocracy are incompatible, has been proven to be wrong. Maybe this theory is merely an excuse to justify supportof dictatorial regimes. Indeed, the advanced Western world is not immune to hypocrisy – on one side promoting
democracy while on the other supporting “Third World” dictators who protect their interests and support theiragenda. They accuse other parties of committing terror acts, but when they invade and occupy a country throughmilitary action that kills and maims many people; this is not defined as a terror act even though it is obvious that
there are parties who are terrorized. However, if the reverse happens, automatically the aggressor is accused ofbeing a terrorist. It feels that there is something out of place here; there are two different values implemented for anissue that is more or less the same.
Indeed the world and the Islamic community, just like other social groups, have many issues that must be solved.
Beginning from the inequalities in the social life in many poor or dictatorial Muslim countries, the position of womenthat tend to be seen as unequal to men, religious freedom and minority rights that are not respected, or the lack ofinterest on the issues of the environment But the world has also witnessed how these societies, faced with a heapof problems, do not remain neglectful and indifferent to the situation. They persevere in the search for solutions.
And the Muslim societies, of which the majority chose the way of moderation, are basically open to the system ofdemocracy and are ready to confront the radicals.
Muslim women who feel that they are not treated equally are also not just staying silent. They strive to find ways out sothat women can get access to education that can raise their status and dignity. The fact is that women’s movements
are continuously developing even though they do receive challenges from the conservatives who are no less dogged
in their resistance. What is more of a problem is when these local/national issues are used by other parties to pushtheir own agendas and forward their own interests. Just like the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was donewith the pretext of saving the women from the oppression by their men. The Western tendency to see problems inblack and white, the practice of intervention as the “world’s police” cannot be allowed to continue.
The Western world that is considered to be advanced and is upheld as a model by non-Western nations, currently isdisplaying various weaknesses in all too obvious ways. Of course its leadership is now also being questioned. Andof course the dark history of the colonial episode, as well as the aggressive tendency that manifests in the initiative
to attack and go to war in the past and in the present, is a weak point that cannot be denied. Colonialism createstrauma that lasts a long time and creates psychological problems that are very serious even though an ethical policy
has been implemented to restore the self-respect and the dignity of the colonized.
At least this is what I understand from the experience of the Indonesian nation that was once colonized for over 300
years by the Dutch. And after over 65 years of independence, there is no escaping from the wounds and marks andthe trauma of inferiority. This is besides the other problem related to the capability of organizing and cooperating,which during the times of colonialization was always being repressed and fragmented. Meanwhile, on the other
hand those who do the colonizing are also not immune to psychological problems – they experience superiority
complexes that cause various tangled issues that continue to play a role right up to today. The Western arrogance ofpower now has manifested as the control of the market and multinational capital, which essentially is a new form ofcolonialism. So it is not surprising that the din of the global life that is controlled by the capitalist economic system
is in such a mess because of the volume of blood spilt and the darkness of violence.
However, I believe that aggression and violence essentially cannot be defeated by violence because that will only
begin a chain of more violence. I am a believer in an anti-violence philosophy as a life path and as a solution to
problems. I salute and have the utmost respect for anti-violence figures like Mahatma Gandhi, and also, naturally,
the Dalai Lama, and also for figures like the Tibetan Buddhist monk Sonam Rinchen – our meeting was so unexpected
and so short but it carved a special mark in the depths of my heart. He is present in the correct time. Even thoughuninvited, the fact is that he came. It is impossible for me to forget him. He made me dive down to the depths of myheart – to once more examine the past and things that had been unintentionally dropped or forgotten. He made me
able to imagine a more optimistic future and change the often-returning nightmare into hope. The future that only
exists in a dream now appears to be a possibility, that we might manifest it in reality. I no longer feel afraid and bitter,
let alone anxious.
The chaotic, aggressive, and harsh world needs an oasis that is cool and gentle to be able to continue its life. Mankind
needs the feeling of security and love because that is what will make him feel at home in this world. Recently I havebeen asking more often about the meaning of life and its continuity – is life simply a journey that begins with birthand ends with death? Is it merely a linear line, is it merely that simple? What is really valuable in this life? What are
the functions of ties and mutual dependence in life, apart from bringing sides closer?
The past, the present, and the future are related and continuous. Life comes and goes, forming a continuous cycle
like an upward moving spiral. Mankind and nature are not separate entities: nature is not an object to conquer andexploit. Nature is like the body that cannot be separated from the soul; both support and strengthen each other. The
soul is not more important or nobler than the body, and it can find liberation through the existence of the body by
discovering and understanding all the facts in the universe and then managing and working on them. So it is in therelationship between thoughts and the body, there should be unity of thought and action. Nature and other beings
are an integral part of the self. So the I is not standing alone, surveying its surroundings as an object to hold power
over.
Reflections of a Nomad Dreamer was compiled based on a letter written by Arahmaiani to the Tibetan Buddhist monk Sonam
Rinchen on March 18, 2011.

PUBLISHED ON THE OCCASION OF THE EXHIBITION
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