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Visual art works to speed up reconciliation over 1965 tragedy
Jakarta Post - January 31, 2016
The chairman of the Democracy and Society Study Center of the Research and Community Service Center (Pusdema LPPM) at the University of Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta, Baskara T. Wardaya, said that up until now, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has not yet resolved the 1965 tragedy, during which the state inflicted mass killings and discrimination on the Indonesian Communist Party's (PKI) members and their families, supporters and sympathizers.
While waiting for the state to implement measures to resolve the tragedy, Baskara said, Indonesian people could use visual artworks as a medium to produce alternative narratives of the 1965 events, artworks that promote dialogue and could encourage reconciliation.
"Initially, President Jokowi intended to resolve the 1965 case, but because of pressures from various parties, it seems that he now doesn't dare to do that," the researcher told thejakartapost.com on Friday. He was speaking after a public discussion entitled "Visual art work as a medium for alternative narratives of the 1965 tragedy".
"As what has been stated by [late] historian Benedict Anderson, the reconciliation is a kind of a joint project to create an Indonesia that could treat its people as a human beings," said Baskara.
He reiterated that the 1965 purge, which took a lot of victims, was one of the biggest humanitarian tragedies in the course of human history. The events, which diverted the course of the country's history, belonged not only to Indonesia but also to other countries in the world. The 1965 massacre was a universal humanitarian tragedy the whole international community must know about.
In the seminar, a lecturer from the Department of Communication and New Media, National University of Singapore (NUS), Dyah Pitaloka, said the public's dialogue over the 1965 narratives must be mastered by the second and third generations of the Indonesian nation.
During this time, many academic papers, research reports and films about the 1965 tragedy had been produced. All of those works did not belong to the victims, unfortunately, she said.
Through her Photovoice art work, Dyah created a photography project, through which the 1965 survivors documented problems in their own lives. "Their work will be uploaded on the website, enabling the people to give their responses," she said.
Through her work, Dyah said she aimed to create an ambiguous public sphere, so that there would be many more narratives of the 1965 tragedy created.
She said such a method would promote dialogue that would reconstruct the public's perception of the 1965 tragedy, which was not only new but also not dominated by a single narrative created by the New Order regime.
Meanwhile, an Indonesian artist who currently domiciles in Belgium, Elisabeth Ida Mulyani, said that in parallel, the artworks on the 1965 tragedy should be able to embrace all Indonesian people, both the victims and non-victims. Vertically, the art works should also be able to destroy the single narrative of the incident produced by the New Order regime. (ebf)
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