Indah Arsyad
The Ultimate Breath 4 - Indah Arsyad
From top to bottom
"2020" (2020) - Multimedia, acrylic on canvas & engrave on acrylic, 60 x 60 x 5 cm, (2020)
konteks karya adalah perjuangan dunia terhadap krisis global yang terjadi di tahun 2020, yaitu seluruh dunia melawan Pandemi dan menghadapi perubahan iklim global. Dimana semua yang terjadi di dunia mempunyai interaksi anatar manusia dan alam semesta yang saya kaitkan dengan philosophi mithologi Jawa Kuno yaitu tentang keseimbangan alam.
"The Butterfly" - multimedia, photography & engrave on acrylic, LED light dan LED flash light projection. 3.5 x 8 M, Sengkarut Identitas, Galeri Nasional, (2019)
Narasi konsepsual krisis Identitas budaya akibat pengaruh Global. Karya ini terdiri dari 6 subyek yang berbeda latar belakang budaya, social ekonomi dan generasi.
"The Butterfly" - multimedia, photography & engrave on acrylic, LED light dan LED flash light projection. 3.5 x 8 m, Sengkarut Identitas, Galeri Nasional, (2019)
"Moonshou" Chandelier Installation - 1000 condom okamoto, fiber on condom and Iron, diameter 1.5 m, height 3 m, Cemara 6 Galeri-Museum, (2015)
Karya Instalasi ini adalah Chandelier dari bentuk symbol kekaisaran Jepang, yaitu bentuk kelopak bunga seruni yang terdiri dari 1000 kondom Okamoto. Karya ini adalah bentuk solidaritas kepada para wanita penghibur yang dipaksa oleh tentara Jepang secara resmi dari pemerintahan Jepang (Kaisar jepang sebagai panglima tertinggi ) pada masa perang dunia ke dua
"On the Way & The Traffic" - Charcoal & Acrylic on canvas, 1.5 x 1.5 m, (2008)
Conscious dan unconscious masyarakat urban terhadap rutinitas kehidupan dalam perjalanan lalu intas perkotaan
"Racing Minds" - 4 x 6 x 1 m, Resin, kerangka kawat dan bulu angsa, (2010)
konteks karya kemacetan lalu lintas Perkotaan dapat mengubah pikiran2 negatif masyarakat urban tentang perkotaan menjadi visi yang berimajinatif futuristic. Karya instalasi ini adalah menggabungkan unsur ruang dan lingkungan.
"The Glory of The Land" - Digital Video Installation & Digital video projecting on 6 hologram screens, 3 x 4.5 m, 15 mins duration, Pameran Tera (in) cognita, Pameran Nusantara, Pekan Kebudayaan Nasional, Galeri Nasional, (2021)
konteks karya tentang identitas budaya bangsa dari pengaruh social, buda, ekonomi dan politik dari sejarah jalur rempah.
"The Ultimate Breath" - Digital video microscope dan wayang puppet animation projecting on paper charcoal, 3 x 4.5 x 1.5 M, sound Wayang : Pitutur Tustho Gumawan dan Sound engeneer Irfan Ksatria) (2021)
Indah Arsyad (b. 1965)
Indah Arsyad graduated as a landscape architect before she became a multimedia artist whose works engage with issues of identity within the socio-political, cultural and urban realms. Her background as an engineer of architecture and environmental technology shines through in her paintings, but most of all in her installations where considerations of objects in relation to space are signifying elements. In a later stage, Indah added video animation morphing into science and climate change, relating to human life and future world developments.
The late Chandra Johan who curated the exhibition Instinct (2005) at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta, noted the early signifiers in her abstract expressionist paintings and bronze sculptures. Particularly her bronze sculptures were infused with a sense of passion and drama. Passion and drama became keywords that marked her further artistic path which evolved from personal experiences towards humankind as center stage.
Her solo exhibition at Museum Nasional Indonesia in 2008 was an inevitable outcome of her daily experiences within the endless traffic jams and severe pollution in the capital city. Impressive charcoal and acrylic on canvas paintings and sculptures drew a portrait of the city that put a dramatic accent on the congested traffic in the city and the poor housing in urban neighborhoods.
Then, amid the urban brouhaha she transformed negative thoughts about the city into a futuristic vision. Meshing elements of space, environment and technology her installation titled Racing Minds (as part of the exhibition Second Opinion at Bentara Budaya Jakarta, 2010) used simple material which in her hands became a fantastic imaginative vision of future transportation. Featuring 21 white resin automobile wheels driven by white wings made of white goose feathers, they infused our imagination of a vehicle that appeared as if it was about to take off towards the ominous skies of the future. Initially, personal problems evoked her intense attention on identity, particularly that of a woman. This intensified interest in women’s lot saw pictures in black and white at the exhibition titled Percept-see (2015), denoting a profound sense of emotion captured by a simple hand-phone camera.
The same can be said of Amarterasu, featuring a chandelier of 1000 condoms that she created for the joint exhibitionKitab Visual Ianfu. Her solidarity with the lot of the comfort women during the Japanese occupation in Asia at the time was expressed with 1000 condoms and petals of 16 chrysanthemum flowers arranged in the form of the Japanese emperor’s symbol called monsho. An even more dramatic view was rendered with a few condoms coming down from the chandelier hanging from the ceiling appearing like metaphors of blood dripping down from horrifying wounds.
Indah also made a digital video art installation titled Another Side for the exhibition Empu at Bentara Budaya Yogya in 2017. The work engaged with women workers from the middle class downwards whose lives differed substantially from the urbanites that are usually highlighted on social media and magazines on issues of gender and class shaping realities in urban society.
In 2019 she reached a milestone when she created a giant installation that she made for a duo exhibition that dealt with the quest for identity in Indonesia id Sengkurat Identitas, 2019. Questions about herself stretched to the issue of identity experiencing a crisis in urban life.
Her theatrical installation work Butterfly was inspired by observations of worrisome cultural changes happening in the urban environment, of which she herself was a part. The use of mixed language by urban youth, and the influx of what was called modern which was changing one’s innate character and evoking new identities was like the process of metamorphosis of a butterfly, she found. She felt an urgency to reveal that all artistically.
For her work, she first selected 6 persons from an environment near her house. These persons came from various backgrounds, different classes and socio-economic standings, as well as with different religious and political adherence. What they shared was the impact of changing situations on their lives. First using the camera to make pictures of each person, she then printed the pictures on transparent acrylic, adding engraved symbols of ancient Javanese mythology. The acrylic slabs were then used as screens which an LED flood light and an LED flashlight projected onto the wall, where the blown up images appeared as shadows backing the real image. The entire work appearing as a theatrical stage of sorts. Emanating wayang and ancient Javanese symbols in a contemporary understanding, her poetic and almost sublime presentation challenges our understanding of what art can do in the changing cultural settings of today.
Her work for the IWA3 exhibition is equally awesome. Deeply touched by the tragic image of George Floyd, a black man, who succumbed under a Minneapolis police officer’s knee pressed on his neck, as well as the devastating impact of Covid 19 that also denotes a shortage of breath. The dire need for oxygen for human life became the focus of Indah’s video installation The Breath.
Indah explained that plankton, while existing in the deep waters of the sea, produce 70-80% of oxygen on earth. That is why she deemed laboratory research important, for which she cooperated with the Oceanographic Research Center of Indonesia’s Research Center LIPI. To acquire onsite information, she did dialogical interviews with the fishermen in the surrounding environment, and did seawater sampling from several points in Indonesian seas. The resulting revelations included the blooming of algae/phytoplankton because of a polluted sea as well as industrial and household waste found along the coast of the Jakarta Bay and the coast of Cirebon.
Set against a black background covered with abstract scratches and human palms printed with charcoal, the palms denoting human activity, the immersive video reveals both drama and tragedy befalling humankind in a world of disharmony. Nevertheless, such a distressing vision is neutralized as Indah goes back to Javanese ancient culture offering hope and new life, with symbols of Batara Surya, the Kalpataru tree and other symbols of ancient myths denoting life in the universe.
Accompanied by a sound score of breath, the chanting of a dalang emphasizes a hopeful accent to the work. This work was recreated in a larger format for the exhibition Infusions into Contemporary Art with the title The Ultimate Breath, with added small containers filled with water from points in the seas of Nusantara where blooming of phytoplankton had emerged due to pollution.
In 2020 she created a work of the same name 2020, with the ball of the earth painted against a lush green and with engravings of old Javanese symbols denoting the spread of the Covid virus in the world. In 2021 as part of the National Gallery’s overall project on Terra Incognita, she created a video installation titled The Golden Land, featuring a multimedia installation (digital microscope photography and engraving on mica sheet) showing the influx of Western and Eastern figures representing colonial powers into the lands of Nusantara, including the lands of Queen TribuwanaTunggadewi, from the Majapahit kingdom.
CB /17Feb 2022