Three Pairs of Hands, the phrase proposed by Mella Jaarsma as the title of her solo exhibition, is inspired by the collective activity of processing the grated trunk of the Rumbia tree into sago starch by the people in Papua. This activity of processing raw food materials is felt to represent the idea that Mella wants to emphasize, namely food politics.
Mella wraps food issues with the visual style that she usually employs. Involving the body, performative in nature, diverse costumes, visual forms twisted in drawing, and the use of mixed and sometimes fragile-looking materials. Her works are vibrant, combining natural materials like pandan leaves, tree bark, animal skins, dried banana tree trunks, palm fiber, coconut shells, and straw with industrial items such as found objects and textiles.
Her narratives are not always densely packed with information. Occasionally, Mella points to trivial social phenomena that we often encounter in everyday life. Her language can be very symbolic, but at other times, she conveys information without hesitation in a more direct manner. Nevertheless, we are not directed towards a single judgment. Instead, there is a niche provided as a space for visitors to interpret and take their own positions.
One striking characteristic of Mella’s artistic practice is her use of unusual materials. Each material element used is always connected to the ideas she raises. She often juxtaposes contrasting material elements. Between natural-found/industrial objects, traditional-modern objects. We still find similar approaches in Mella’s displayed works, although the use of natural materials is particularly dominant.
Through the combination of contrasting material elements and the types of social realities she confronts, Mella seems to lament various shifts and perceived losses. However, instead of being continuously trapped in this lamentation, Mella uses it as a means to observe our current situation while asking (including us) what needs to be done next.
In her reading, Mella starts from the tradition of collective food processing and cultivation in rural communities in several places in Indonesia, which is beginning to shift due to modern agricultural industry. Ultimately, this shift triggers various changes that we can feel around us; from the smallest things like that we consume to the ongoing global climate change. Agricultural cycles become uncertain, and long-established local knowledge about agriculture becomes obsolete.
The Masculinity of Agricultural Industry
Two main topics often emerged when Mella and I discussed the overarching ideas for this exhibition. The story of Dewi Sri and the ecological thoughts of Vandana Shiva. While the story of Dewi Sri and Vandana[1], Shiva’s ideas are not directly connected, both invite us to imagine the same thing. Agriculture as a domain synonymous with “women.”[2]
The story of Dewi Sri, or the Rice Goddess, can be found in several places such as Java and Bali (Dewi Sri), South Sulawesi (Sangiang Serri), and Sunda (Sri Dangdayang Tresna). I certainly do not intend to recount each story in detail. Although the content and names differ, the stories of Dewi Sri share a common theme: a woman (the incarnation of a goddess) transforms into a rice plant. This Rice Goddess has guardian animals (snakes, cats) and “enemies” representing pests (pigs, brown planthoppers).
The story of the Rice Goddess has inspired various rituals or traditions in agrarian societies, such as rituals before planting and harvest festivals. The Rice Goddess is believed to bring fertility to the land and ward off pests. Therefore, before planting, traditional agrarian communities would pray for their rice to be free from pests and drought. After the harvest, the community would celebrate with a harvest festival to express gratitude for the yield.
Such rituals are supported by the belief that rice plants are also “living” entities with souls that need to be treated well. In one version of the manuscript in South Sulawesi, Sangiang Serri even includes moral guidelines on treating the harvest, such as never leaving the rice jar empty, taking only enough rice for consumption, not wasting rice when eating, and treating the guardian of the Rice Goddess (meompalo karellae, literally “three-coloured cat”) with respect.
The narrative of the Rice Goddess in traditional agrarian societies serves not only as a symbol of fertility but also connects to our way of managing food which, borrowing Vandana Shiva’s term, is centred on women. In this context, food management is based on sharing and caring, as well as conservation and nutrition provision, in contrast to the masculine modern agricultural industry.
Following Vandana Shiva, Mella also views food issues as closely related to women. Initially, the food processing system was centred on women: where production, processing, and provision were the domain of women. Such roles have shifted from the hands of women to agribusiness corporations driven by a ‘capitalist-patriarchal’ logic. Agribusiness corporations control the food production chain, from seeds to our dining tables.
Critically, Vandana Shiva highlights the role of agribusiness corporations in eliminating hundreds of thousands of seeds that could be staple food sources and how food has transformed from a source of nutrition to a commodity. Monoculture, seed and fertilizer monopolies are directed solely for corporate interests. Food is produced not for “food security” but to make biodiesel (and economic commodities)
This situation has made agribusiness corporations contributors to the emergence of famine. Vandana Shiva outlines several reasons: 1) Industrial agriculture destroys small farmers. 2) The nature of the agricultural industry is capital-intensive. The monopoly of seeds fertilizers, which cannot be produced independently, makes farmers heavily dependent on the agricultural industry. 3) Malnutrition and hunger also increase because farmers are forced to plant commercial agricultural commodities for export purposes.
In Indonesia, we have felt the impacts. Merauke Integrated Food and energy Estate (MIFEE), for example, has cleared the customary forest of the Marind Tribe to create areas for palm oil and food crops like rice. The Marind Tribe has lost their abundant daily food sources. Or more recently, a similar program in Kalimantan (food estate), which recklessly turns forests into corn farming land, killing local food potential.
The Residue of What Is Lost
Change is inevitable. However, what Mella questions is where these changes will take us. The image of change in the dominant capitalist-patriarchal discourse assumes humans as the centre, severing the relationships between humans and between humans and nature.
In response, Mella presents a series of tensions. Human-nature, tradition-modern life, local knowledge-contemporary life, continuously in the works displayed. She looks far back to dialogue with the issues “here and now,” while imagining what might appear in the future. The knowledge and life experiences that Mella tries to recover are like residues from the past that allow us to re-question the grand narrative of the food security discourse.
‘Selimut Bicara / Blanket Talks I’ (2024), the title of one of Mella’s latest works displayed in this exhibition, consists of square pieces of Lantung barkcloth, each piece using the spacing between rice plants (21-23 cm), arranged into a blanket. On it are inscribed three traditional Javanese calendar symbols (pranata mangsa) made from straw, dried banana stems, and coconut shells. These patterns stretch across the blanket, filling 3 x 210 squares of bark pieces.
This blanket becomes a medium for three performers, Zuhdi Sang, Gispa Ferdinanda, and Idha Saraswati, to dialogue and share stories about food issues. Gispa opened the conversation by sharing stories about what is currently happening to the people in Papua. They seem to be forced to replace their staple foods of sago, taro, and sweet potatoes with rice. Food sources that could originally be obtained for free in nature are being pressured by extractive agricultural industries.
Zuhdi sang responded by sharing his experiences with the Marind Tribe, whose customary forests are affected by the MIFEE project. Large companies try to talk to the Marind people, but there is no connection. “Baku Lewat” (passing by each other without seeing), says Zuhdi, referring to the Marind term for responding to the “good intentions” of companies to “prosper” them through MIFEE. For the Marind people, the forest is part of themselves; they are taro, coconut, sago, and the land itself. While for the companies holding the concessions, the land and forest are merely commodities.
Idha Saraswati continued with a story about digital agriculture. This model is seen as a response to climate change that alters planting cycles and the need to make agricultural cultivation more productive. However, Idha questions who controls these digital instruments. These are multinational corporations that control such technology, allowing them to dominate food production from upstream to downstream.
This dialogue unfolded interactively, starting among the three performers and concluding with an interaction between them and the audience. This work open up the possibility of more complex reading. Besides the narratives from the performers the audience also has space to share their stories directly.
One issue we can grasp from this work is the experience of loss. Rituals, nature, life experiences, and even objects. The traditional Javanese calendar symbols inscribed on the blanket represent knowledge accumulated from long agrarian traditions. Through this knowledge, farmers could determine the best time to plant, the right seasons for planting non-staple crops, and predict disasters or pests that could harm crops at certain times. This knowledge has been lost due to changes in natural and/or climatic cycles.
The narrative of the experience of loss is also found in Mella’s other works. The work ‘The Impolite Project’ (2024), for example, highlights the shift in Javanese societal behaviour that is no longer “refined” due to the loss of balance and symbiosis between humans and nature. The need to gain profit as quickly as possible in food production eliminates the balance that once existed. This work is likened to Dewi Sri, whose manifestation has transformed into a different form, namely a feminine body disrupted by masculine instruments.
Similar to ‘To Impolite Project’, the work title ‘The Antithesis of Growth’ (2023) voices almost the same issue. The acceleration of time, capital accumulation, and the pursuit of economic growth standards are seen to have altered the rhythm of Javanese society. Everything becomes fast and measurable. Mella analogizes the natural cycle in traditional Javanese knowledge like the female body-giving birth, aging, and passing on knowledge to the next generation.
Mella presents the experience of loss differently in her work titled ‘12 Tembang 12 Messages (2024)’. This video work is a collaboration between Mella and Imam Wicaksono, a Macapat singer of traditional Javanese poetry. Mella shared her concerns about the environmental crisis, which Imam then turned into a song. This work includes various types of Macapat songs: mijil (advice or suggestions), kinathi (guidance or direction), asmaradhana (love), megatruh (facing death experience), to dhandhanggula (hope).
Mella does not always present contrasting and opposing dualities. In the work “Load” (2016), for instance, a series of photographs invites us to imagine the balance between humans and nature. The body and nature become a single entity. However, balance cannot appear just like that. Humans are responsible for bearing the burden and creating that balance.
Besides Load, the work titled ‘The Size of Rice I’ (2021) also offers another perspective on environmental issues. In this work, Mella explores the idea of the body and measurement. This work involves performers from different backgrounds, reflecting on what specific measurements mean to them and seeing their cultural significance.
Ultimately, we can also see that Mella remains consistent with the body and covering. The body is not seen as something fixed and whole. The body in Mella’s works is never truly singular. It is connected to various layers of identity, culture and ethnicity, ideology, even power. The body wrapped in covering becomes an idiom or metaphor that Mella uses to discuss certain identities with all their complexities. Liters of oil, carts, gas hose handles, palm fiber, coconut shells, etc., as parts of the covering, become instruments to define the identities of the bodies displayed by Mella.
Epilog
Whenever an artist pushes social issues in his/her work, the question that always arises is whether art can bring about change? Change may be too grand a notion. Art that pushes social issues does not always have to reach the tendency to change something. It needs to be positioned as a means to speak, a way to express our wounds. More or less like hysteria, and that’s not an issue at all. To close this writing, I want to quote the closing stanza of the Macapat song composed and song by Imam Wicaksono in the work titled “12 Tembang 12 Messages”;
Linut arum sekar dhandhanggendhis
Prawasista urun pamicara
Samya duka penggalihe
Pirsa kawontenanipun
Kathah reribed ugi krisis
Samubarang kang ala
Kadospundi muwus
Sedaya sampun kaprada
Murih dados panglipuring penggalih
Paringa pamrayoga
Meaning
Through the Dhandhanggula song, it is told how artists can voice and contribute. Paying attention to the big issues in this time of crisis. Creating beautiful works to entertain is not quite suitable, but what can I actually offer?
[1] Vandana Shiva very seriously discusses ecological issues in relation to feminism. The writing we referred to our conversation at that time was a short article titled “Women and the Gendered Politics of Food,” PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS VOL. 37, NO 2 (FALL 2009), pp. 17-32
[2] Placed in quotation mask to indicate that the idea is not solely related to women as a gender but also as a concept and/or practice.