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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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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.”
Life = instant noodles
“After a lot of contemplating and researching, I think instant noodles portray the way we are living right now,” Cynthia explained.
After years of living in an urban setting, it dawned on Cynthia that city-dwellers crave instant gratification.
"We, city people, don’t know whether instant noodles are actually good or bad, but we will still just eat them, because they are so easy and so quick to prepare. Things need to be very fast for us, instant, like instant noodles," said Cynthia.
The artist’s unique take on the subtleties of everyday life got her in the list of Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in the Arts in 2017. Her work has been displayed at local and international exhibitions, from Body-Out (2017), Bandung Contemporary Art Award Assemblage (2019) and Media Art Globale (2019) in Jakarta to Harper's Bazaar Art Prize (2015), Affordable Art Prize (2016) and The Only Paradise is Paradise Lost (2019) in Singapore.
An artist who got to know Cynthia’s work during their exhibition at Body-Out, Rega Ayundya Putri, said she took note of the depths of Cynthia's mind through the artist’s work at the exhibit. Rega told The Jakarta Post: "At first glance, her work might look pretty simple, but when you spend time looking deeper, it is really rich in context, and it drives my curiosity for what is inside her mind."
Toilet paper pandemic perspective
Knitting Noodles is not the only time Cynthia utilized seemingly-trivial everyday objects to reflect on life. During Singapore Art Week 2021, Cynthia delved into the notion of time using a rolling toilet paper installation.
"When the pandemic began to strike, people were buying toilet paper out of fear [of running out of it]. People started to feel that the pandemic freezes time, when it really doesn’t. Toilet paper symbolizes the constant continuation with its rolling movement, just like a clock that moves in a circle," explained Cynthia.
Beyond what it’s meant to say about the pandemic and our concept of time, the thought of having toilet paper rolling on the floor of art galleries is comedic. The juxtaposition of the philosophical and playful aspects of her work is solid proof that art can be relatable yet intriguing, packed with a lot of open-ended narrative that can be interpreted in many ways.
Other than working with three-dimensional visual channels, Cynthia will also explore other mediums to display her art, including creating a comic book to showcase a new project called Kresek: Daily Life of Plastic Bags. The word kresek is Indonesian for plastic bag. It will be published at a still-undetermined date later this year.
"To me, the idea is more important than the channel itself, so I try not to limit myself to any specific form of art. I think that the premise of Kresek, in which I try to humanize plastic bags, will be represented better by a comic book than an installation," Cynthia told The Jakarta Post.
In whatever form Cynthia’s art is showcased to the world, one thing remains. It is her mission to take apart objects from, and the routines of, everyday life to change our perception of what those things truly mean.
"I thought the underlying theme of all my works is that they are never intentionally planned. But as I have grown as an artist, and as I see it constantly, I have started to intentionally plan it now. I feel like it becomes as dialogue that is good for me to continue."
To see more of Cynthia's work, visit cynthiadsuwito.com.
