The future of our art world?
By Gesyada Siregar

'My Own Words' is a monthly series which features personal essays by practitioners in the Southeast Asian art community. They deliberate on their locality's present circumstances, articulating observations and challenges in their respective roles.

In the past, opening exhibition parties that I used to attend would splurge on the infamous anggur merah (local red wine) served and shared in black plastic bags with a single straw and a buffet of ‘gorengan’ — Indonesian oily fritters mix. Nowadays, I attend online exhibition openings alone while sipping tea with a mug and munching delivery noodles from my work desk. With endless e-meetings, we have become ever more self-conscious from talking to our own faces on the screen. This lockdown and being self-aware has led to a “health awakening” among myself and my colleagues, as a course-correcting pivot of our usual habits and choices from our pre-COVID lifestyles.

Through my observations, aside from internet-based art, health-oriented artistic practices have risen in prominence within my art ecosystem. This include the food, sustainability and wellness-focused artistic projects by artists and art collectives in Indonesia, whether in the form of artworks or long-durational initiatives. I will elaborate upon ‘Panen Apa Hari Ini’ by Anang Saptoto, the 3D-printed face shields production campaign by Bagus Pandega, the remote residency Do a Front Air 2020 by Dholy Husada & Timbil Budiarto of Lifepatch, ‘Lab Pangan’ by Fajar Abadi and harriismo, ‘Don’t Waste The Pain’ by Ruth Marbun, and more in this essay. This type of practice can be dated back to B. C (Before COVID-19) times. One might recall the installment of OK. Pangan/Food — International Media Art Festival by OK. Video in Gudang Sarinah Ecosystem back in 2017 showcasing these various practices and issues specifically about food from previous years. These health-oriented projects have become more urgent now, as art practitioners have to mull over the possibilities of integrating what they do artistically and surviving pandemic, be it in a representational nature or through direct action with the local community.

“These health-oriented projects have become more urgent now, as art practitioners have to mull over the possibilities of integrating what they do artistically and surviving pandemic, be it in a representational nature or through direct action with the local community.”

One bright example of how these health-oriented artistic practices have been translated representationally is the work of media artist Dyantini Adeline, ‘Celluloid-19’ (2020). Her work is presented in ‘Pancaran Citra Lokal’ (Projected Local Image), in Bale Tonggoh, Selasar Sunaryo, Bandung, as part of ‘Indonesia Bercerita’, a Ministry of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia project. It was one of the rare offline exhibitions that my co-curator, Bob Edrian and I organised at the end of last year. ‘Celluloid-19’ is a black-box installation, flashing two moving images from analog and digital projectors, along with two light boxes illuminating the bands of processed 16 mm black-and-white celluloid. The band of analog film, incorporating both of the positive and negative film straps, is looping the act of the artist washing her hands with soap for twenty seconds, whereas the digital video documents her kitchen processes. Dyantini experimented with the manual celluloid rinsing process, by utilising liquids that are familiar to us in our pandemic daily habits, from effervescent vitamins, disinfectants, to jamu empon-empon, an Indonesian traditional herbal drink which is being promoted by our president to enhance immunity. These ‘healthy’ bath reactions leave yellow tints and dendrite-like blotches on each celluloid frame. As Sunaryo himself commented during the opening, the work would never have happened if it weren’t for the pandemic. ‘Celluloid-19’ alludes to the iterative strategies to “clean” ourselves from contaminants these days.

Dyantini Adeline, ‘Celluloid-19’, 2020, 16mm black and white celluloid, analog film projector, video, light box, jamu (herbal medicine), disinfectant, effervescent vitamins. Photos by Ardiles Klimarsen. Images courtesy of Indonesia Bercerita. — Dyantini Adeline, ‘Celluloid-19’, 2020, 16mm black and white celluloid, analog film projector, video, light box, *jamu* (herbal medicine), disinfectant, effervescent vitamins. Photos by Ardiles Klimarsen. Images courtesy of Indonesia Bercerita.

This health-based artistic practice also implored the artists to fabricate sustainability schemes in an artistic way, as seen in the work of MG Pringgotono in ‘Shifting Ecosystem’ (2020), exhibited in Meretas Batas (or Hacking Boundaries), curated by Ayu Dilamar and Monica Hapsari in Gudskul Ekosistem, Jakarta. As part of a fashion exhibition, MG tailored an installation of jacket and bags, sewn out of used plastic banners from the promotional materials left over from an art event. These fashion items then functioned as a portable architecture of aquaponic irrigation systems for bok choys and small fishes to grow, with LED lamps surrounding them, acting as a sunlight replacement. This installation triggers a science-fiction imagination: a post-apocalyptic dystopian set in a Kowloon Walled City-like metropolis with high-wire barren land that resulted in immense food scarcity. In this supposed universe, self-sustainability is presented at an extreme level, embedded into our clothing because there is no place left to grow whole foods. ‘Shifting Ecosystem’ represents the artist’s imagination of survival mode that we could achieve through art and design, especially fashion.

MG Pringgotono, ‘Shifting Ecosystem’, 2020, installation of upcycled clothes and aquaponics systems, from used plastic banners, fishes, bok choys, water, irrigation pump, LED light, human. Images courtesy of Serrum Arthandling/Gudskul.

“These art collectives try to sustain their agenda and resources in their own instinctive method, creating alternative institutions as their artistic statement, through dedication and continual praxis.”

In the following examples, we will see how Indonesian art collectives have transformed their spaces, resources, and management skills to equalise the disparity of COVID-19 precautionary steps from our Ministry of Health. Komunitas Pasirputih in Pemenang village, Lombok, for instance, has been producing masks, sanitisers, and comics about health protocols in the local language to reach wider understanding within their public. Jendela Ide, based in Bandung, created a music video for children entitled ‘Corona Jangan Ganggu Aku’ (Corona, Please Don’t Disturb Me), accompanied with a dance challenge to motivate and spread awareness among kids who are coping with staying at home.

Jatiwangi Art Factory (JAF) in Jatisura village, Majalengka, initiated a movement with the tongue-in-cheek name ‘Hit and Run’, where they supplied food packages to their neighbourhood who struggled during the pandemic and gave personal protective equipment (PPE) to local community health centres. They also sold in bulk homemade butterfly-pea flower drinks to strengthen body immunity, where more than half of every purchase have been donated to medical workers. JAF also gathered massive volunteers to create this movement that poked fun at local political figures for their lack of measures against the virus.

Gudskul, the collective ecosystem of Grafis Huru Hara, Serrum and ruangrupa, were also raising funds to produce and distribute a thousand free PPEs. It was distributed to hospitals and community health centres. They were also working with farmers in Tanakita, Sukabumi to create an online grocery shop with affordable prices. The members have also been initiating urban farming on Gudskul’s veranda. Yogyakarta collectives together formed Solidaritas Pangan Jogja, a network of food banks for distributing access of food to vulnerable communities. If the notion of collectivity is about being together through thick and thin, it can also be twisted as being together through “sick and sin”.

Gudskul’a PPEs productions in Auditorium, 2020. Photo by Jin Panji. Image courtesy of Gudskul.

Finding ways to overcome sickness and professing sins from the pasts have been the kernels of wisdom stemming from the pandemic. This health-oriented artistic practice has not only manifested as public projects, but also on the visceral level, through quotidian aspects of these art practitioners’ lives. After the early wave of lockdowns, Gudskul began administering healthcare insurance for its collective members. Farming has become a practice not only in its collective space, but also in the houses of collective members. We might notice how we and our art friends have been unlocking their cooking skills, opting for healthier relationships with food and selling their homemade cuisine as a side hustle. The desire to connect with separated friends and colleagues have lured us to create online art talks and programmes to combat loneliness. We are all in this process of reflection and adaptation to navigate our way through this warren of a pandemic. We do not live in a romantic comedy, where it takes one dramatic song to segue to the next happy ending. This is a long simmering situation in which we are finding our moment to heal. Therefore, I speculate that, in the future, these health-oriented artistic projects will slowly be a flourishing endeavour to make sense of our lives and art practices in contemporaneity.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of A&M.
Read all My Own Words essays here.

About the Author
Gesyada Siregar (b. Medan, 1994) is a curator, writer and art organizer based in Jakarta. Her curatorial, publication, and art projects are focused on showcasing young artists and also a rereading of Indonesian art discourses from the 1940-1990s. She is the subject coordinator of Articulation & Curation in GUDSKUL: Contemporary Art Collective and Ecosystem Studies.