Porosity of Parables
2024-2025
Charcoal powder, corn starch as binder
Silkscreen on cotton fabric
When I introduced myself and told them where I came from, here, people often responded, “Oh, you are from Jakarta? I heard the city is sinking.”
This is the parable how it came to be.
“This city, after all, was made of gridded canals. Like in their homeland, but these canals were unbridged. Their very purpose was segregating instead of connecting. The chained slaves worked to their bones to dig the canals and dredge the never-ending ansemble of sediments from the bottom.
This fortified city was surrounded by walls to keep away those whom they considered as the most lowly humans, most prone to revolt. Away from their eyesight, away from their skin. All these efforts were to maintain their racial dominance, so they could own more and more. Of course, they knew that looking into another’s eyes should be based on equality, and that was not what they wanted.
They were driven by their belief that, since they had built such a fine life in their four season land, they knew best how to live in the land of two monsoon seasons. “Such hereditary intelligence from our civilized forefathers must be God-given. Civilized people like us know how to build civil structures everywhere. Is there anything that we don’t know better than others? Haven’t we conquered even the sea?” This is a common belief among them. On the other hand, the natives have always known how to live with the wisdom of their rivers. They know where and when to start digging their own canals. Their bodies connect with their land of water and soil, and this river delta delta has given many blessings to them. In the past, they worked together to maintain the bodies of water of this land for the common good.”
-Excerpt from “Parable of the Bridges” by Ratu R. Saraswati
Charcoal, corn starch as binder
Silkscreen on cotton fabric
Produced at Plaatsmaken
On display; coral stones ruins of the 17th Kasteel Batavia, North Jakarta. Then, the Dutch colonial settlement the city of Batavia was built on the ground of the destroyed Kingdom of Jayakarta. Under the command of J. P. Coen, coral building blocks were collected from the seabed of Kepulauan Seribu by the native population of Nusantara.
Presentation in The Living Prints, Plaatsmaken, Arnhem
Documentation by Koen Kievits
Presentation at Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn
Documentation by Bart Treuren.
“A conversation with Julian introduced me to the young-adult book, The Shipboys of Bontekoe (1924), a book by Johan Fabricius. The fictional book took inspiration from the journal of Bontekoe (1618-1625). Julian told me that the view of colonialism held by many Dutch is influenced by its portrayal in this book. Bontekoe is depicted as someone who is heroic, and a role model because of his perseverance when facing obstacles in life. In real life, Bontekoe helped Coen to find materials to build a colonizer’s settlement, Batavia. Bontekoe and his fleet stole hundreds of Chinese people from their lands and sent them to Batavia. Many of them did not survive on their way there. I read it from Arnoud’s article in Oud Hoorn magazine.
As we speak about the fictional shipboys, I remembered about the two boys from the urban kampung near the wall of Batavia. On the day I was taking photos in the area, they were passing by after swimming in the green-water canal beside it. They asked me if I could take pictures of them. When I sent them their photo, one boy expressed his gratitude for the photo. His friend is going to study at an Islamic boarding school. That means, they will be separated for a long time. I am glad that I can help preserve the memory of the friendship between them. That is a real-life friendship to me.”
-Excerpt from the script “Porosity of Parables”
Acknowledgments:
Hotel Maria Kapel
Patar Pribadi
Candrian Attahiyyat
Angga Cipta
Aziz Aminudin
Yuda
Marisella de Cuba
Julian Wijnstein
Arnoud Schaake
Stichting Plaatsmaken
Simon Groot Kormelink
Astrid Nobel
Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst
Stichting Stokroos