Heri Dono reveals the nature of oppression

I Wayan Juniartha ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Ubud, Bali   |  Thu, 12/18/2008 11:21 AM  |  Surfing Bali

Heri Dono, one of the country's leading artists, has not grown tired of warning the public of the dangers of oppression and how mankind has gradually accepted some disguised forms of oppression as ordinary, harmless phenomenons.

In an ongoing exhibition titled "Post-Ethnology Museum", Dono has once again addressed the subject.

This time, however, he has tried to establish a "historical" line to connect the old form of oppression, in this case colonialism and imperialism, to the new form, which includes capitalism and globalization. He looks at the similarities of the different forms of oppression.

Dono is convinced that oppression, old and new, share similar characteristics: exploitation of the weak, marginalization of the poor, alienation of the uneducated and destruction of the rebellious vassals.

The exhibition's curator Mikke Susanto set the tone of the exhibit in his curatorial note by stating, "Some of the world's ethnology museums display collections acquired during the period when their respective countries were major actors of colonialism and imperialism.

"These museum, to a certain extent, justify the 'pastime' of their rulers from that period. They become an extension of that period's spirit of conquest and annexation. Scores of the museum's collections are spoils of wars in the past, a mobilized image of a nation and an expression of 'The Other' -- the conquered-projected into the cultural space of the nation of conquerors."

Clinic Primata, an installation artwork by Heri Dono, reflects the artist’s refusal to bow to the oppression of the mind. He argues the Western world has imposed its own truths, based on its scientific methods, upon the rest of the world without paying attention to alternative truths proposed by the Eastern world’s ancient teachings and cultures. (JP/I Wayan Juniartha)

Dono continued the tone by arranging argumentative art objects along the white wall of Gaya Fusion Art Space.

In the wall facing the gallery's main entrance, Dono placed an enlarged copy of the text of the country's independence declaration. He drew a red question mark at the end of the text's most important sentence, thus, questioning whether the country, and its people, had really ever entered a state of freedom.

That is how Dono operated. He picked several things, all of which had been treated by the public as accepted facts, then arranged them in radically new ways to build mind-opening constructions.

The constructions would force the viewers to re-evaluate their prevailing perceptions of the accepted facts. Dono apparently hoped the stimulations provided by his artwork would take the viewers into a new realization of the truth about oppression.

Take for example, his installation works Museum Ethnography and Tentara Keraton.

The first work featured an array of cracker cans, the kind of cans displayed in food stalls of low-income housing areas. A metal insignia of keraton (palace of Javanese kingdom) was attached to the front of the cans. Toy warships were fixed above each can by a supporting wire.

Each can hosted different figurines, from an ancient Javanese king sat proudly behind two TKWs (Indonesian female migrant workers) to the Ramayana's white monkey warrior Hanoman braced for a fight against modern action figures.

Tentara Keraton installation featured three figures dressed in the uniforms of royal soldiers, but with insignias and badges of the contemporary Indonesia armed forces. The figures had tails, resembling the tails of dinosaurs -- the ferocious predators -- and had no lower limbs. Their lower limbs were substituted with a set of wheels.

Both installations reflected "the efforts to connect the old forms of oppression to the new ones. In the pre-independence era, the country was under the oppression of foreign company: the VOC, and later on of foreign countries of the Netherlands and Japan. Ironically, these foreign powers ruled the country by proxy, recruiting the local royalties and kingdoms to exploit their own country and people."

In the post-independence era, the country is ruled by a government comprising of Indonesian people. However, Dono argued, this government had colluded with foreign multinational corporations to exploit their own country and people.

The actors, or the identities of the actors, might be different but the script was disturbingly similar.

In his other displayed works, Dono denounced other form of oppression: The suppression of free-thinking when the Western world imposed the truth generated by its scientific method to the rest of the world, neglecting local wisdom of many ancient teachings and communities.

Post-Ethnology Museum will instill a lingering sense of dissatisfaction in the minds of its viewers -- the dissatisfaction that rose from knowing that after all these years we are still falling for the old trick, the illusory facade of comfort constructed by the oppressors, old and new.

Post-Ethnology Museum
Paintings and Installations Exhibition by Heri Dono
Dec. 13, 2008 - Jan. 13, 2009
Gaya Fusion Art Space
Jl. Raya Sayan, Ubud
Phone: 0361-979252
www.gayafusion.com

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