[ Travelogue ] Group Show 国际艺术合作项目
Photo-Art + Essay + Drawing + PoemPembukaan/ Opening: 13 December 2012, 7pm
Exhibition: 14 -28 December 2012
Mui & Tan Haur (Singapore)
together with special invited Guest Artists (Bol Brutu, Indonesia)
Putu Sutawijaya, Pande Ketut Taman, Feintje Likawati, Sandat Wangi, Ida Fitri, Ninuk Retno Raras, Boen Mada, Edy Hamzah, Nur Cahyati Wahyuni, Rani Februandari, Suci Pri Hatiningsih and Dyah Merta.
Curator: Kris Budiman (Indonesia)
Organizer : Jenni Vi Mee Yei (Indonesia)
Graphic & Creative Design Consultant: Tan Haur Studio, Singapore
Today’s world has transformed into a terrain termed by Arjun
Appadurai (1996) as the global ethnoscape. When someone’s attachment to a
certain nation-state and homeland seems to fade away, human being then bears a
brand new status as trans-migrant, non-temporary traveler creatures either in
physical, intellectual, or imaginary conception. Tan Haur and Kit Mui are such
kind of couple who barely ceases to travel from many departure points (with
almost no return points). During their many travels, incessantly they bear in
mind various ethnoscapes they ever witness through the aid of certain media,
mostly photography, sketches, and other no less practical visual media. From
this point onward, the seemingly incessant travels then turn into a working
series of space construction, either for aesthetical production or
appropriation purpose. In brief, citing John Urry’s terminology (1995), both of
them has and been continuously involved in the activity of visual consumption.
From this standpoint, we can propose a sort of
presupposition correlated to how the visual consumption they did can be similar
or different, either between Tan and Mui themselves or between them and some
colleagues from Bol Brutu (Gerombolan Pemburu Batu; band of stoneseekers) who
are invited as the guest artists, as exposed in this exhibition entitled
Travelogue. What are the visual consumption elements, through action that we
call gaze, which unify or set them apart? Generally, we can hypothesize that on
one side both Tan and Mui accentuate romantic gaze, but on the other side they
tend to be anthropological. Their gaze exposes several characteristics such as
solitary, becomes absorbed and drifted away by the moment, and involves vision,
aura, and amazement over the exotics and extraordinary. This anthropological
tendency will probably also be apparent in the process which involves scrutiny
and active interpretation inside of themselves.
Knowing Tan and Mui since early 2012, I have witnessed how
they arrange travelogue –a narrative genre interlacing the enchantment of
traveling amidst the drama of victory and failure – through the visual
perception towards and experience of encountering the Other in other places
(Ijo Temple and Mangir Village in Yogyakarta; Merak Temple and Sendang Tirta
Mulyani in Klaten; Klenteng Singosaren and Pasar Gede in Solo). By means of
visual travelogue in the form of photos and sketches, they recount the
perception and experience in a way I can call passionate. Especially in the
sketches, this passion is manifested in the lines they scratch on pieces of
papers. Tan, with his obvious philosophical vision, met and conversed with the
biggest Buddhist monument worldwide; while Mui, with her intuitive and
bold-minded lines, meditated over the tiny plain objects she encountered. Both
seem to enjoy their traveling experience, the experience of ethnoscape
disjunction liberated from the tendency towards factual accuracy in narrating.
Original Text in bahasa indonesia by Kris Budiman (Curator) / Translated by Ana Zahida
Sangkring Art Space
Nitiprayan rt 1, rw 20 no.88 Kasihan Bantul, Yogyakarta.
Supported by: Sangkring Art Space and Singapore International Foundation
