At the Smart Museum, Chicago 2012
Artist Interviews
MELLA JAARSMA
SMART: Describe your path as an artist and sources of inspiration for your work, either in or beyond the context of art.
MJ: I have been living and working as an artist in Java, Indonesia since 1984. By choosing to live within a totally different culture, after having grown up in the Netherlands, I became more aware of the values and norms of my own cultural background. This process made me conscious of differences between cultures and also taught me how to identify these differences. What we consider to be reality comes to us by means of contrasts in experiences. Multiple and different dimensions have entered my art and art making processes since I became part of this hybrid society in Indonesia. What interests me most about Indonesian contemporary art is the great variety of developments and movements that interact with social and cultural circumstances. I am intrigued by the awareness of the function of an artist to use their position to provoke a dialogue within this society. Indonesian culture has a strong traditional background, a rather new capitalistic consumerism, and complex political tensions.
My work focuses on an awareness of these experiencesâideas about our own existence in a certain place in a particular world. My existence in the hybrid feudal society in Java, where I have to deal with stereotyped roles of a foreigner as post-colonialist and explorer, and where I communicate through art, is what still fascinates me. My work is also about positioning ‘the native’ and ‘the ethnic’ and the acknowledgement that these categories could be reversed, depending on their surroundings.
SMART: Tell us about ‘Pribumi – Pribumi’ and how it fits into your broader practice.
MJ: Everyone who confronts my work is coming at it from different backgrounds and cultures, dealing with highly personal sets of taboos and therefore experiencing the work in different ways. I want my work to relate to these specific audiences, to deal with some of their taboos and interpretations. This takes great sensitivity, and therefore I try to find ways to open up dialogue, rather than work in a more confrontational way. I am not looking for symbols to make a meaningful artwork, but I am searching for a phenomenological reality, like idioms, with visuals that speak for themselves.
During the political and racial riots in 1998 in Indonesia, in the heat of ending the power of the Suharto regime, it didn’t make sense to stay working in a studio while the students were so brave to demonstrate and risk their lives. I decided to do a performance on the street after the stories appeared with what happened to the ethnic Chinese during the riots. Chinese are the black sheep of Indonesian society and in times of chaos like the riots in 1998, anger was reflected on this ethnic minority. The position of the Chinese in Indonesian society has its roots in the colonial era; the Chinese were the middlemen between the Dutch and the native Indonesians. They were the traders and got access to better education.
During the riots in 1998, Chinese-owned shops were set on fire, and killings and rapes took place in Jakarta and Surakarta. In Yogyakarta, the city where I live, Chinese started to protect their shops from burning and demolition by putting signs on their closed doors that said:’Native shop owner,’ or ‘Native Muslim shop owner.’ I was shocked to see this racial outburst, and one and a half month after Suharto resigned, I decided to do a performance on the street.
I looked for a way to communicate and open up a dialogue about what happened with the Chinese, and I decided to work with food. I used frog legs, because Chinese eat frog legs, and Muslim consider this delicacy to be unclean (haram), thus revealing different cultural perceptions. I created the performance ‘Pribumi – Pribumi’ in which I invited friend – all foreigners who live in Yogyakarta to fry frog legs along the street and serve the food to the public. I used the position of my ‘western’ friends as we are also a minority, but admired a position I used to trigger questions from the public.
SM: What does ‘pribumi’ mean?
MJ: ‘Pribumi’ means ‘native.’ It’s also translated to mean ’the first created from the earth’ which is why I connected it to the frogs’ legs, because the frog is also the animal that goes from the sea to the land. Thatâs also why Muslims are not allowed to eat it; they see it as unclean since the animals go between the sea and the land.
SMART: What about the related series ‘The Warrior, The Healer, The Feeder?’
MJ: In this work three models wear cloaks made out of different materials, representing the inevitable connections across killing, healing and feeding. These three are sent as one package to the battlefront, supporting each other in the aim for surrendering the enemy, but pampering the people at the attached area at the same time by providing medicines and food. I made this work in 2003, when the U.S. went to Iraq and at the same time the Indonesian militaries went to Aceh, the northern province of Indonesia, ‘to settle’ the independence movement there.
‘The Warrior’ is made out of used military outfits that were worn by 16 Indonesian soldiers, mixed with seaweed to created a new warrior cloak. The lowest part with the seaweed hangs into a pan and is boiled into a soup that feeds the audience. The two other costumes are made out of natural medicines (The Healer) and squid (The Feeder), which are also boiled into soups to heal and feed the audience.
SMART: What about ‘I Eat You Eat Me?’
MJ: ‘I Eat You Eat Me’ is an interesting way to find out about human character. I usually explain the concept of the work to two people who walk into a restaurant or food court: the eating performance is about having an intimate dinner which I describe as ‘going into the skin of the other’ in which a hanging table connects the two people. By creating this situation with the performance and the hanging tables, I ask them to think about the other, the taste of the other. You also have to order the food for the other (without talking about it first), and then when the food arrives, you feed the other. It’s very intimate. You have to open your mouth for the other and the other has to feed you with the rhythm of your eating.
SMART: When did this project begin?
MJ: It started in 2002. I first I made it for an exhibition in Thailand. The curator got the idea to do it at a certain restaurant in Bangkok called Eat Me. It was a fancy restaurant so we had four of these hanging tables in between their tables, and when people arrived at the restaurant I just asked them if they would be willing to join the performance. Some wanted to do it and some didn’t so it was interesting to have that mixture. I also made a deal with the cook so when people joined the performance they would get a free dinner. We had special menus so we created six different types of food and they could choose from that.
SMART: How did people respond to the performance?
MJ: People were quite excited actually; they thought it was a great idea. Some people found it difficult to really think about what the other would like although they had known each other for a long time. Itâs very hard not to start from your own taste. Some people just order ice cream because they want ice cream themselves. But theyâre not allowed to discuss the order. You have to try and imagine what the other wants to eat.
You also have to balance. The bib is hanging from your neck and then goes to the table to the neck of the other. So it’s all about balance as well, so you cannot be very aggressive. You have to sit quite still so some people found it difficult to be relaxed. I hoped people would try to look more closely into the other and also to think less about themselves.
SMART: Tell us about the new version of the piece that you are making for ‘Feast.’
MJ: For ‘Feast’, it’s an experiment to make the table for six people. As a university museum there are many young people, and I hope by being in groups of six the students will feel connected and want to exchange not only food but also ideas and discussion. Simultaneously with the exhibition in Chicago I want to do a performance in Yogyakarta, to see how it works. I’m going to do the six-person performance in the same restaurant I did the other performance three years ago. It’s a place where many people gather. There are students but also travelers, musicians, artists; everybody comes there. I wonât prepare who will participate ahead of time. I think itâs interesting to see who comes to the restaurant and ask if they are willing to participate.
SMART: How would you describe the role of the meal in your practice?
MJ: I use food mainly as an idiom to communicate: through a confrontation with local food traditions, cultural differences can truly be experienced. In particular, meat consumption often creates reactions, from unfamiliar snacks as frog legs or caterpillars to more extreme examples such as cannibalism. Exchanging ideas about food and eating behaviors can open up a space for understanding personal, racial, religious and ethnic differences.
Food is always very important not only in starting a dialogue but also in creating a feeling of comfort. Indonesia is one of the biggest Muslim countries in the world and most people don’t drink alcohol. So food is very important. If you go somewhere there’s always food on the table and people who want to invite you to eat. You have to eat a lot because it’s an honor to the ones who invited you. It’s not very polite to refuse food. It’s connected with the hospitality of people here.
SMART: Do questions about hospitality figure into your process or thinking?
MJ: When I create a work, I often start thinking from the perspective of the audience. How can I create a situation of maximum connection? I often think about how to create a situation in which the public is participating in the work, or at least is open to new ideas. That’s more important to me than being provocative, which may create a distance. It also has to do with the situation in Indonesia. Living here is very much about harmony. It’s not as much about finding the truth; itâs much more about how to balance. People are not very confrontational.
Hospitality with food can be a starting point for the public or for a certain community to be involved or connected to my work, depending on the aim of my project. The setting in a gallery space or at any other venue like a restaurant is also important, again depending on the idea / concept.
For example, for the Asia Pacific Triennale 3 in 1999 at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia, I exhibited four leather cloaks from frog legs, chicken feet, kangaroo skins and fish skins. The different animal skin cloaks were worn during the opening by people from different ethnic origins and with different skin colors: a Sri Lankan, indigenous Australian, Japanese and white Australian. I also designed three kitchen tables and offered the meat of these four animals with a variety of spices to be cooked by the international public. I set up this happening with the idea that preparing food and eating together opens up understanding of each otherâs cultures and stimulates communication.
SMART: What does it mean to you to be included in a show called Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art?
MJ: I love the theme, and it’s good to be explored in a specific exhibition, because food is such an important medium with great impact and has the strength of everybody’s interest (look at the popularity of ‘Master Chef’ and ‘Hell’s Kitchen).’ I hope it will show different perspectives and contexts of food, and I hope that my contribution is a specific one, relating food to other discourses.