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'Kopi Susu': A journey of two identities
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Fitting in: A portrait of Dutch photographer Rosa Verhoeve featured during the “Kopi Susu” exhibition at the Dutch cultural center, Erasmus Huis, in Jakarta. (JP/Valerie Halim)
I
ssues of one’s identity are almost always hard to navigate -- even more so when someone is of mixed blood and struggles to fit into any of them.
Dutch artist and photographer Rosa Verhoeve certainly felt that way, having been born with Dutch-Indonesian ancestry after World War II.
Those which that ancestry, called the Indo people, have been found across Indonesia since colonial times. Many packed up to leave for the Netherlands after the war, although some stayed behind to start new chapters and families.
Verhoeve herself was born in 1959, two years after her parents boarded a ship in Tanjung Priok for the quaint town of Amstelveen. Some 50 years later, she returned to Indonesia to find more about what was only accessible through photographs and paraphernalia.
Thus, Kopi Susu (Coffee with Milk) was born. Unlike the iced drinks Jakartans seem to enjoy so much these days, the kopi susu here refers to a term for Indo people, a term Verhoeve heard from an old Javanese woman during a bus ride to Surakarta.
Originally manifested in the form of a photo book of the same name, Kopi Susu was published in 2017 and an exhibition on it was inaugurated at Museum Bronbeel in Arnhem.
Verhoeve passed away peacefully on June 27, 2018 from colon cancer, content as she had finished her life’s work. As fate would have it, her photographs finally made their way to Jakarta and are being exhibited at the Dutch cultural center Erasmus Huis until Aug. 24.
