By Sibylle Kaczorek
DARWIN â On June 2, artist Dadang Christanto's exhibition titled Reconciliation was opened with a powerful performance and installation.
Christanto, who was born in Indonesia in the late 1950s, uses simple materials (pieces of red wool) and everyday scenes (a bed, a table and chairs) to symbolise the penetration of injustice and blood into our personal space and the public sphere.
The opening performance by Dadang and his co-artists was a wordless presentation of movement and human sound leaving blood on the walls and the hands, and in the mouth â an invasion of violence and death into our senses. The combination of means and technique powerfully exposed the subject matter and kept the audience captive, unable to escape the message. That message is the need for justice in the process of reconciliation.
James Bennett, curator of South East Asia Pacific Arts at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, outlined the political background to Dadang's work. He reminded the large audience about the brutal colonisation of the Asia Pacific region and that Australia is the remaining colonial power, apart from the resurgence attempt of Portugal in East Timor. He described Indonesia's bloody history and the massacre in 1965-66 of anyone who was vaguely identified as communist.
Bennett referred to Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid's recent apology to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the famous novelist, former member of the Indonesian Communist Party and now a member of the People's Democratic Party. Pramoedya refused to accept Wahid's apology, said Bennett, and demanded an apology from the parliament instead.
This example highlighted Dadang's message, which challenges the emptiness of the word sorry. Reconciliation, says Dadang, is about the responsibility to expose a history of lies and to refuse a life of hypocrisy and injustices.
Dadang Christanto's Reconciliation continues until June 24 at 24HR Art, Parap.