Kurniawaty Gautama, 34, a slight woman with a soft voice, is responsible forShelter", the truly wondrous exhibition, which is now on display at Bentara Budaya Jakarta.

"Ah, yes" she said Friday evening at the arts complex,are amazed. They have never seen (unfired) clay exhibited before. And they look at me, a tiny woman, and can't quite figure out how - why I make these towers".

Working outside tradition, Nia's main body of work in the exhibition comprises an installation of finished, but unfired clay sculptures. Two other rooms contain smaller fired works that are more commercial in nature.

Taking their form from termites' nests, the sculptures in the installation stand approximately shoulder high and have been marked and carved so as to suggest human homes, with awnings, windows and doorways. Spelling out the message that humans have a lot to learn, even from the smallest of God's creatures.

Nia employs two artisans, who constructed the framework of the structures and helped her carve out their circular windows.

The sculptures also set up images of sandcastles that stand on windswept shores as the water foams and bubbles, those magical kingdoms that are beyond human detection; the work of child architects - or the lonely beachcomber.

Modern buildings are feats of ingenuity and neither is the termite nest merely a mound, a haphazard pile of dirt.

These works are drawn together by a carpet of earth that has been poured throughout the gallery.

"Millions of termites work incessantly, purging the surface of the red soil and mixing it with their saliva to make the most amazing forms," Nia said.

The mounds are not the residences of the termites that built them. Their residence is the nest below the mound, a spherical underground city about six feet in diameter. The mound ventilates the nest. The mounds may be thought of as air conditioners.

"These nests have been taken apart, layer by layer, to work out their architecture. The termites harness the wind, pushing it into the mounds' tunnels," Nia said.we could apply this technology we could reduce much of the need for air conditioning and bring global warming under control," Nia said.

She said the exhibition was an extension of the concept she developed in her last show,and Play in our Backyard", at the Japan Foundation in 2006.

Her work bears an environmental message, as well as a social one.

"Termites construct these mounds even though they are totally blind. They don't need eyes. The Almighty is very powerful. The blind, the deaf, the dumb, the disabled, the marginalized - all are capable of achieving great heights, of making miraculous works," Nia said.

Having received no formal art training - she majored in economics at Triskati Universityit seems also a miracle that Nia has been able to develop such a clear vision and make it manifest. She credits her curator, Rifky Effendy, whom she met at an exhibition at Cemara gallery in 2005, for this ability of hers to articulate a message.

"I also want to send the message to people that clay is ceramics and that too can be exhibited. I started on this theme when I found a section of wood that had been devoured by termites. And I promised myself that one day I would make an artwork from this wood".

But Nia has not neglected the other role of the termite as destroyer.surface looks smooth but inside the wood is rotten and damp and termite infested," she says.is like the embezzler, the thief, who for all accounts and purposes may look like a pleasant man. Ha! The embezzlerthe lazy fellow - who doesn't stoop to building his own castle."

The other two rooms of her exhibit contain the works that carry price tags. (The installation works Nia is also happy to sell, but only on request.)

In the room to the left of the main space, a long table holds dozens of lamps and candlesticks shaped like houses and, inspired by traditional Indonesian architecture, beehives, and the houses of sea creatures in walls of coral. While functionary in purpose, these small works are also heartfelt and most quaint.

To the right are tables arranged at different heights (step tables) that can be each purchased as individual works. They are titled Amaze I, II, II etcetera - all part of the one series.

Onto the surface of each table has been arranged miniatures of the termite mound sculptures with figures peering into and interacting with each one. The palm-size figures wear frocks and overallssome are male and some female. Their hair is red and twisted intro buns, or cropped neatly. Country folk, they approach the mounds with their feet planted firmly apart, in awe at the intricate architecture of these Wondrous Shelters and at the same time stand negotiating as if to enter them. There is a deliberateness in Nia's message.

The entire exhibition was delivered to Bentara Budaya in pickup trucks and reassembled in the gallery space, in a sort of connect-the-dots manner.

Nia said she is finally starting to identify: "Now I am an artist. Now I can finally state that I am an artist. And I am happy, because I have a passion".

Wondrous Shelter is the creation of one woman who in 40 days in November made an astounding number of works that were then delivered to Bentara Budaya. Thus she has delivered this sprawling exhibition, this very successful exhibition. One could say Nia has indeed "white-anted" some preconceptions about art and the whole wondrous world.

"Wondrous Shelter"

Nia Gautama

March 5-16

Bentara Budaya Jakarta

Jl. Palmerah Selatan

Phone: (021) 5483008 ext. 79107911

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