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Tintin Wulia: At ease with experimenting
JP/Ika KrismantariHaving survived more than 10 years in the art world has made Tintin Wulia a more open, relaxed and less ambitious artist
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JP/Ika Krismantari
Having survived more than 10 years in the art world has made Tintin Wulia a more open, relaxed and less ambitious artist.
Known previously for her brilliant short films that have snatched awards in many international film festivals, the 38-year-old has grown into a professional artist who explores various types of media to express profound social and political issues involving human identity.
“I have become more experimental lately, more spontaneous and open to collaborating with members of the audience or with other [artists] as well,” Tintin said in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post.
Tintin’s artwork is currently on display in a month-long art exhibition organized by local art community Ruang Rupa to mark its 10th anniversary.
Her installation for this exhibition — titled Window of Contemporary Art — isn’t just a two-wheeled cart with four windows installed on top of it.
She has also asked a group of sketchers and members of the audience to participate in a so-called performance around her installation, making them an important part of the exhibition as well.
“It [the performance] is basically a game involving the audience. I want this to be participatory [art],” Tintin said.
Through her artwork, Tintin explores the concept of human identity which can be so flexible.
“We may also experiment how the concepts of seeing and being seen can develop when we try to see things from the windows. We cannot be sure who’s inside and who’s outside anymore,” she said.
Tintin explained the artwork was part of her PhD project that focuses on national identity from an art perspective.
Her PhD research in Fine Arts at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, has brought so many changes to her way of creating and thinking.
“I used to create things without clear basic foundations. If I wanted to make something, I would just do it without any further thinking. But the [PhD] program has taught me so many things and helped me to think back about what I have done in the past and what I will do in the future,” Tintin remarked.
She added that such an approach had forced her to think in more depth about an issue before transforming her concept it into artwork.
“When I made short films back in the 2000s, I just made them when I wanted to. But it’s different now,” she said, while recalling a number of her short films like Ketok and Slambangricketychuck that won a number of prestigious awards in film festivals at home and abroad.
The Post has also felt a sense of profoundness in Tintin’s way of speaking during the interview. She used well-structured sentences and easy-to-understand language, while frequently correcting herself when using what she felt were inappropriate terms.
The Post had actually already met Tintin at an independent film festival in Jakarta back in 2002, when she had won several awards.
Bali-born Tintin was at the time a young-spirited and friendly artist deeply passionate about film. She also seemed to be a loner who preferred to work behind the scenes while also frequently mingling with the public.
Nine years later, Tintin is still the same small figure with a friendly smile. She is almost 40, but many people would probably assume she was in her 20s judging by her looks.
But today’s Tintin is different from the one the Post encountered nine years ago. She has proved herself in the art community, by showing she could use other types of media than audiovisual to express her art.
Tintin also explained that she felt more opened in her creative process, as opposed to before when she used to do everything on her own.
“I have started to include performances in my art exhibition and opened the process to the audience, which can give new meaning to the artworks. In the end, this will allow me to learn a lot from their response,” Tintin said.
However, Tintin noted she couldn’t avoid the unexpected during this more ad lib creative art process. Bringing third parties into her artwork involved many improvizations that sometime lead to unwanted results.
“I am thinking it’s quite cool if I as an artist I don’t know what the end result [of my creation] will be. So it will be a surprise in the end…I will keep the process open, so I can enjoy it and feel entertained as well,” she said.
If we create [art] with an experimental spirit, she added, we can gain much more than we lost.
Tintin nowadays also feels less hungry for success. The artist doesn’t entertain any dream projects or big ambitions anymore: All she has now is a list of upcoming projects she expects to exhibit this year.
“I don’t know… Maybe it is because of my age. But I feel enough for everything. It would be good if I could stay at this stage. I don’t expect much,” said Tintin, who prefers to concentrate on more realistic and upcoming projects.
Apart from her exhibition in Ruang Rupa this month, Tintin is preparing a solo show for the Langgeng Gallery at the Jakarta Art District in February and an art exhibition in Sydney to complete her PhD program by the end of this year.
