AN INTERVIEW WITH ARAHMAIANI
In the work of Indonesian artist, Arahmaiani, the immediacy of performance is seasoned with a potent blend of activism, cultural research and community development. The result—a politically engaged cross-media practice rich in poetry and chance, in suggestive collisions of language and cultural signage—has earned her an enduring place as one of the leading voices of critical art in Southeast Asia.
Since her student days in Bandung, Arahmaiani has consistently challenged the political and cultural status quo in Indonesia and elsewhere. A Javanese Moslem, in recent work she has sought to do justice to the diversity of Islamic cultures, taking aim at the world’s stereotypes of her faith. Her installation at the 2005 Venice Biennale tackled the issue of post-9/11 cultural and racial profiling, drawing on her own brush with the US ‘Homeland Security’ regime. Last year’s Satu Kali festival in Kuala Lumpur was shut down by Malaysian authorities after one of her performances was alleged to be offensive to Islam.
The artist has recently been in Australia to take part in Artspace’s ‘Aftermath’ series, focusing on the relationship between performance art and installation. Her work, Make-up or Break-up, is built around a series of public performances—somewhere between promotion and protest—featuring banners that bear the names of multinational corporations in Jawi (Malay-Arabic) script. I asked her about the political and social context that informs her work.
David Teh: You support a syncretic idea of Islamic culture, contrary to the monolithic image it’s given in Western media. Your recent work has explored ‘alternative images of Islam’, including in Thailand, where Moslems are a minority. Can you say something about your discoveries?
Arahmaiani: The experience I had working... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline