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For Indonesians, instant noodles mean life
“We don’t know if it’s good or bad, we eat it simply because it’s easy and fast” - Indonesian artist Cynthia Delaney Suwito uses the staple meal to get her point across.
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Indonesian artist Cynthia Delaney Suwito creates tapestries using boiled instant noodles. (Courtesy of Cynthia Delaney Suwito/Cynthia Delaney Suwito collection)
E
ven without mentioning the brand, we all know that instant noodle jingle, don’t we? Aside from being an unintended staple food of almost cultural-significance for many Indonesians, a pack of instant noodles (of whatever brand) can become a piece of art in and of itself. This is what Indonesian-born, Singapore-based Cynthia Delaney Suwito suggests. The 28-year-old artist boils her instant noodles, letting them cool before knitting then into a form of tapestry. Cynthia has made multiple appearances at art galleries in Singapore and Indonesia doing exactly this.
The performance and installation is named, fittingly, Knitting Noodles. Yet the message that the artist wants to put forward is multilayered, with references to the struggles of living in fast-paced cities like Jakarta and Singapore. As Cynthia states on her website, "The act of knitting instant noodles aims to contrast the concept of precious time. [Using] this object [instant noodles] that is supposed to make things faster and easier [actually] makes the process of knitting slower and more difficult."
Asked about her creative process, Cynthia says it consists of a lot of pondering and contemplating. "Back when I was still pursuing my Fine Arts major, one concept that really resonated with me was still life painting. [Those paintings] don’t mean to describe themselves, but they [unwittingly] do. Using that framework, I tried to pick an object that I feel might describe our current society best."
Being Indonesian, it’s almost unfathomable that Cynthia would not fill her bags with packs of instant noodles when she moved to Singapore to study at LASALLE College of the Arts.
"Instant noodle is a staple, and I needed to bring it with me," she told The Jakarta Post, echoing many Indonesians moving abroad.
She began thinking of using those noodles to create art after noticing the number of expired packs she hadn’t eaten because she wanted to start a healthier diet. “Yet I didn't want it to go to waste, because it had already travelled by air with me.”
