When two words in the Javanese or Indonesia language are reversed, they can signify meanings that are almost opposite to each other. Londo Ngemis means “foreign beggar” and Ngemis Londo means “begging from foreigners”. Gila Bule can be translated to “crazy about foreigners”, while Bule Gila means “crazy foreigners”.
For this work, I engraved these words into buffalo horn plates, thereby questioning my own position as a Dutch person in the hybrid, feudal society of Java, where on a daily basis I am confronted with the stereotypes of the rich foreigner and the foreigner as colonialist and explorer. The work also attempts to de-stabilize the position of “the native” and “the ethnic/foreigner”, highlighting that one’s relative position can be reversed, depending on the context.