Mella Jaarsma
From top to bottom
Hi Inlander-Hello Native (detail), - Frog’s legs, chicken feet, kangaroo leather, fish skin, photographs, 3 kitchen tables, spices, (1998/1999)
Square Body-Kanda Empat - Three dresses, light installation, video, audio, ‘Quartet for square body’ by Tony Maryana, photography: Mie Cornoedus, (2009)
Blinkers
Blinkers
A Taste of Behind - Two costumes of barkcloth, acrylic paint, fabric, bamboo, photography:Bert Sacre, (2018)
A Taste of Behind - Two costumes of barkcloth, acrylic paint, fabric, bamboo, photography:Bert Sacre, (2018)
In Ravel Out - Leather, stainless steel, newspapers, soluble plastic made of cassava, photography: Mie Cornoedus, (2018)
In Ravel Out - Leather, stainless steel, newspapers, soluble plastic made of cassava, photography: Mie Cornoedus, (2018)
The Landscaper - (2013)
The Landscaper - (2013)
The Size of Rice - (2021)
The Size of Rice - (2021)
Wearing the Horizontal - Barkcloth from the mulberry tree (created by Mufid), fabric, metal three costumes, variable dimensions, archival print on Hahnemuhle photo rag satin Triptych, 90 x 78,2 cm each, Ed.10 + 1 AP, (2020)
Mella Jaarsma (b. 1960)
The name Mella Jaarsma is intricately intertwined with Cemeti gallery and contemporary art development in Yogyakarta. She and her husband Nindityo Adipurnomo founded the alternative gallery Cemeti in 1988 and became the key to experimental and contemporary art in Yogyakarta. In 2006 the couple was awarded the prestigious John D. Rockefeller 3rd Prize for Professional Achievement and commitment to developing Indonesian arts. As an artist, Mella consistently informs on the ills in society, but she has recently changed from sharp commentary to providing answers for innovation on the ground.
Forging contacts with international institutions, assisting in the selection of Indonesian art compatible with contemporary trends overseas, Mella and her husband became trustworthy resources on Indonesian contemporary art and a qualified bridge to network with the international circuit. In addition, their art space became known as among the best managed of the time. Mella is widely known as a driving force.
Born in the Netherlands in 1960 and a graduate of the Minerva Fine Art Academy in Groningen, she arrived in Indonesia in the early 1980s where she first enrolled at the Jakarta Arts Institute in 1984, and later moved to the Indonesia Arts Institute in Yogyakarta where she studied visual art. She met and married Ninditiyo Adipurnomo. Together they set up Cemeti to allow artists creating experimental art to display their works. Conventional galleries denied them such a space at the time. Cemeti was a space and platform that helped now renowned artists develop their art.
When Mella first came to Indonesia, she was inspired by the tropical sun and the shadows it cast on her. She was also impressed by the shadows of visitors in the sidewalk warungs (food stalls) cast by the flickering of lampu templek, traditional oil lamps. Having previously studied the philosophy of wayang or shadow puppetry, these experiences made her adopt shadows as a metaphor for the human body in all its various forms and positions vis-a-vis space, tradition, culture, religion and politics.
Shadows also represented the border between the seen and the unseen, her works came to signify life and death as belonging to the same cycle. An important work in this sense was Pralina - A Fire Altar (1993) featuring a crematorium platform that she constructed in the village of Munduk in northern Bali. In 2009 Mella created an installation for the exhibition Beyond the Dutch at the Dutch Centraal Museum. Titled Square Body-Empat Kanda (Shadow Gowns), the work, a video installation, used special lights resulting in shadow images, features three shadow dresses or with shadow images in the four corners, based on the Balinese belief that four brothers will surround and protect you during your life time.
Mella’s art works have been hailed as opening the eyes of the public to issues deserving critical judgment.
Her work evolved from shadows as a metaphor to installations poignantly commenting on unequal relations and prejudices of race, religion, class, and gender in relation to humanity in society. Her early works have been inspired by the body covering burqa or jilbab that appeared in various representations to respond to sociopolitical issues.
“I use clothing in my work to question one’s behavior and social conditioning,” she has said.
One such work was titled Hi Inlander (1998-1999), the term being a Dutch colonial derogatory way to address natives, here used in a cynical manner. It was the first time she used a cloak for her installation that immediately pointed at the issue of intolerance between certain groups. To make the cloak she would for instance, use frog legs, a delicacy for Chinese people but haram (unclean) for Muslim people.
Mella further responded to contemporary socio-political issues using body coverings, which she considers as a façade in which to hide or appear, inhibit or vacate. She also made them out of squirrels, chicken feet, snakes as well as moth cocoons, water buffalo horns, the bark of banana trees, and more.
Mella has created a massive number of works, including installations and performances based on research and philosophical ideas as a basis for her critical views in thought provoking works. Some of her best known works include I eat you eat me (participatory), Lubang Buaya, Dogwalk, Binds and Blinds, and Animals have no religion, A blinkered view- high tea low tea.
In 2017 she created I Owe You, a work that discusses the power politics in the use of bark cloth, which people were forced to replace with cotton under colonial rule and when Christianity and Islam were introduced. Followers were prevented from using this material because of its relation to traditional ceremonies and animistic beliefs. More recent works with bark cloth include the series titled A Taste of Behind. (2018)
In line with the latest issues worldwide, this year Mella has made works to rethink basic human needs related to the issues of ecology, climate change and its impact on the human being. She visualizes this in a series of works titled Feeding the Nation. In the work In Ravel Out, which features women in what looks like today’s festive dresses, Mella exposes the process of change and regeneration in today’s social and cultural patterns. The works are commenting on the current situation where plastic bags are replaced by a material made of cassava which is soluble. These bags carry outdated newspapers, editions of Tempo magazine no longer available due to its digital transformation.
Mella’s oeuvre has been presented widely in Indonesia and abroad, including ‘Dunia Dalam Berita’, Macan Museum Jakarta (2019), Setouchi Triennale, Japan (2019), The Thailand Biennale, Krabi, Thailand (2018), The 20th Sydney Biennale (2016), ‘The Roving Eye’, Arter, Istanbul (2014), ‘Siasat – Jakarta Biennale’, Museum Keramik dan Seni Rupa, Jakarta (2013), ‘Suspended Histories’, Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam (2013), ‘Singapore Biennale’, Singapore Art Museum (2011), ‘GSK Kontemporer – Sadar: Art Fashion Identity’, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2010), ‘Mengenal Kembali Identitas’, Museum Katonah, New York (2009), ‘Fashion Tanpa sengaja’, Museum Seni Kontemporer, Taipei (2007), Yokohama Triennial (2005), and many more. Her works are in the collections of among others, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, The National Gallery, Canberra, the Singapore Art Museum, Ilham Museum, Kuala Lumpur and the National Gallery of Indonesia in Jakarta.
IWA3, 20Feb2022/CB