SITUATE / 4 April to 3 May 2019
PROJECT SPACE / SPARE ROOM / 2 to 25 May 2019
OPENING / Thursday 2 May 2019, 5–7pm
Present Measures is a series of artworks that acknowledge and pay homage to the long history of female leadership in Indonesia. The work uses sourced black-and-white photographs from the 1959 edition of Api Kartini, an Indonesian magazine published by the women’s rights organisation, Gerwani. Present Measures embellishes and decorates these images for solidarity and, in a desperate effort to acknowledge these women, draw our attention back to their tragically silenced voices.
“The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.” (Judith Lewis Herman)
Who started the struggle of women’s rights in Indonesia? How did the feminist movement begin and develop in Indonesia? I was born in 1986 and have no direct links nor relation to the tragedy that occurred in Indonesia in 1965, but it is these questions that were catalysts for my exploration into the history of Indonesian feminism. And as I traced these questions back into the 1950s, my heart was struck deeply by the history of Gerwani, one of the first women’s rights organisations to be established in Indonesia.
Since its inception on 4 June 1950, Gerwani has evoked challenging social and political discussion throughout Indonesia’s history and to the present. Gerakan 30 September in 1965 (G30S), or the 30 September Movement was a coup d’etat attempt by Indonesian National Armed forces that led to the assassination of 6 generals and 1 lieutenant. The events of G30S led to the demise of Gerwani, due to their association with the largest communist party at the time, PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia), the accused aggressor behind the coup.
Gerwani women were branded by the Indonesian military as ‘violent, deviant and crazed’, accused of committing sexual and sadistic acts of torture and murdering seven Indonesian army generals. The New Order regime under Lieutenant General Suharto’s government is not only believed to have fabricated Gerwani’s involvement but also to have sensationalised the injuries of the army generals. The New Order regime advocated for women to take up supporting roles out of public life and devote themselves to traditional maternal roles.
Since my childhood, Gerwani has been portrayed as a group of evil ill-intentioned women by anti-communist propaganda created by or affiliated with the New Order regime (for example, the 1984 Indonesian docudrama Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI). But other sources—non-government controlled books, articles, interviews and magazines—reveal a radically different history and show Gerwani’s fight for causes such as wage equality, world peace and the abolishment of polygamy, underage marriage and workplace discrimination. Further, Gerwani was different from other 1950s women’s rights organisations as they advocated for women to be involved in politics.
The artwork series, Present Measures (2019), features round-cut black-and-white photographs sourced from the first edition of the Gerwani-produced women’s magazine, Api Kartini (1959). The images provide a look at Gerwani’s actual values and mission, which are still unfortunately not as widely known as their besmirched reputation. Present Measures uses colourful beads and embellishments to decorate and celebrate a piece of moments that, despite happening before I was born, feel very close to my heart. Each work has two sides and rotates, like a coin turning slowly to represent both histories: the history written by Gerwani and the history redacted by the New Order regime.
-Yaya Sung, 2019
This project has been kindly supported by Project Eleven.