VO LU M E 2 4 N O.

4 D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5

the journal of
the asian arts society
of australia

TAASA Review

ASIAN WOMEN ARTISTS

C ONT E NTS
Volume 24 No. 4 December 2015

Ed itor ial : As ia n Wo me n A r tists

TAASA R E V I E W

Natalie Seiz, Guest Editor

WOMEN AND PROJECTS ON SOUTHEAST ASIAN WOMEN ARTISTS (1990-2015)

THE ASIAN ARTS SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA INC.

Abn 64093697537 Vol. 24 No. 4, December 2015
ISSN 1037.6674

RE-MODELLING ART WORLDS: EXHIBITIONS

Yvonne Low

e di torI A L email: editorial@taasa.org.au

7 TRANSFERR ED BEAU T Y T H E H AIR ART O F L EE S EKYU N G

Khanh Trinh

General editor, Josefa Green

pub l i c at i on s c om m i t t ee

9 AT THE THRESHOLD : INDIAS WOMEN, ART AND CU LT U RAL C ONTIN UITY

Registered by Australia Post. Publication No. NBQ 4134

Chaya Chandrasekhar

12 R HEIM ALKADHI : T H E P OLITICS O F EXCH ANGE

Josefa Green (convenor) Tina Burge

Melanie Eastburn Sandra Forbes
Charlotte Galloway Marianne Hulsbosch
Ann MacArthur Jim Masselos Ann Proctor
Sabrina Snow Christina Sumner

Jane Somerville

de s i g n / l ayou t

14

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO REHANA? HOMAI VYARAWALLAS PHOTOGRAPHS OF MODERN GIRLS

p ri n t i n g

AND THE CULTURAL PROJECT OF NATIONALISM

Sabeena Gadihoke

Ingo Voss, VossDesign

John Fisher Printing

18 A SHIMMERIN G P RACTI CE : J A PANES E LACQ U ER ART

Published by The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc.

PO Box 996 Potts Point NSW 2011
www.taasa.org.au

Enquiries: admin@taasa.org.au

Bic Tieu

www.facebook.com/taasa.org
20 RAMA WAS A MI GRANT TOO : INT ER VI EWIN G SAVANH DARY VON G POOT H ORN

TAASA Review is published quarterly and is distributed to members

Christine Clark

22

HAIR JEW ELL ERY O F MOLU CCAN WOMEN O F T H E D U TCH E AST INDIE S

performing arts. All articles are refereed. Additional copies and

Marianne Hulsbosch

subscription to TAASA Review are available on request.

24

WAYS OF REMEM BERING - GR EEN ISLAND AND S H AWNA YAN G R YAN

The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc., its staff, servants or agents.

Mark Harrison

No claim for loss or damage will be acknowledged by TAASA

of The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc. TAASA Review welcomes

submissions of articles, notes and reviews on Asian visual and

No opinion or point of view is to be construed as the opinion of

Review as a result of material published within its pages or

26 MELATI SURYODARMO : P ER F ORMANCE AS J O U RNEY

in other material published by it. We reserve the right to alter

Yeehwan Yeo

indemnity from the advertisers and contributors against damages

27

BOO K REVIEW: A PA R A N A K A N CO O K BO O K F R O M E A S T J AVA

John Millbank

or omit any article or advertisements submitted and require

or liabilities that may arise from material published.
All reasonable efforts have been made to trace copyright holders.

28 REC ENT TAASA ACTI VITIES

29 TAASA MEMBERS DIAR Y: DE CE MBE R 2015 F E BR UA RY 201 6
30

WHAT S ON: DE CE MBE R 2015 F E BR UA RY 2016

Compiled by Tina Burge

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advertising@taasa.org.au
Hair on carpet (detail) (onsite installation at SongEun ArtSpace), Lee Sekyung 2013.
Dyed human hair, carpet, 300 x 700 cm. Photo: Lee, Changwon The Artist.
See pp 7-8 in this issue.

A full In d ex of ar ticle s pub l ishe d in TAASA Rev iew since i t s beg i n n i n g s

i n 199 1 is available on the TAASA web site , www.taasa.o r g. au

The de a dl i n e f or a l l a rt i c l e s
F OR OU R N E X T I S S U E I S 1 5 D E C E M B E R 2 015
The de a dl i n e f or a l l a Dve rt i s i n g
F OR OU R N E X T I S S U E I S 1 F E B R UA RY 2 016

TAASA C OMMITT E E

E DITORIAL : ASIAN W OM E N ARTIST

G i ll Gr een Presi dent

Guest editor Dr. Natalie Seiz

Art historian specialising in Cambodian culture

A NN PROC TOR Vi ce President

Art historian with a particular interest in Vietnam

To dd Sun d er man TR EASUR E R

Former Asian antique dealer, with a particular interest

in Tibetan furniture
Dy Andr easen SEC RETARY

Has a special interest in Japanese haiku and

tanka poetry
Si o bh an C ampbell

Lecturer, Indonesian Studies, Sydney University

with an interest in Balinese art
Jo sefa Gr ee n

General editor of TAASA Review. Collector of

Chinese ceramics
B o ri s Kaspiev

Private collector of Asian art with a particular interest

in the Buddhist art of the Himalayan region
MIN - JUNG KIM

Curator of Asian Arts & Design at the

Powerhouse Museum
Ja m es MacKean

Collector of oriental ceramics

Natalie Seiz

Assistant Curator, Asian Art, AGNSW with an

interest in modern/contemporary Asian Art
CHRISTINA SUMN ER

Former Principal Curator, Design and Society,

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
Sandy Watson

Collector of textiles with an interest in

photography and travel
Ma rgar et White

Former President and Advisor of the Friends of

Museums, Singapore, with special interest in
Southeast Asian art, ceramics and textiles
TAASA Ambas sad or
Jackie Menzies

Emeritus Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of NSW.

President of TAASA from 1992 2000
state rep r es entative s

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

Me lanie Eas tbu r n

Curator of Asian Art, National Gallery of Australia

QUEENSLAND
Ta run Nage sh

Assistant Curator, Asian Art, QAGOMA

SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Ja m es Ben nett

Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia

VICTORIA
Caro l C ain s

Curator Asian Art, National Gallery of Victoria

International

Why have an issue of the TAAASA Review

on Asian Women Artists? Surely in the last
twenty five years we have seen, written,
talked about this topic enough? Surely we
have partaken to ensure women artists in the
Asian region have had the equal exposure and
opportunity as their male counterparts? Well,
maybe not enough, but things are gradually
changing.
Women is such a diverse topic; we are all
aware of the clichs associated with the notion
of women making up half the world. When
I was asked to guest edit this TAASA issue,
I endeavoured , not necessarily to create an
issue revolving around a theme about women
per se, but instead examined what interested
authors so much about women artists that
they were willing to write something for this
particular issue. So with many of the writers,
I made the selfish decision of selecting people
I was really interested in to find out, if given
the option, what they would choose to write
about Asian women artists. This issue as such
contains a number of artists I was not familiar
with or practices I was not aware of, and
made it a very interesting project of discovery.
I think Yvonne Lows paper puts this issue
into perspective. Her article fundamentally
questions how far women artists exhibiting
in Southeast Asia have come and how far
they may need to go. She outlines a number
of womens group exhibitions: the circuits
which have been established, and the
importance of analysing the histories of these
exhibitions as part of recovering the history
of women artists. Sabeena Gadihokes article
about Homai Vyarawalla, Indias first woman
press photographer, is a fascinating article
about not only the building of modern India,
but of the modern girl in India.
Khanh Trinhs article about artist Lee
Sekyung, who moves between Korea and
Germany, relates the idea of the use of hair
in her work, a material that has different
meaning amongst cultures. Jane Somervilles
piece about the American born Iraqi artist
Rheim Alkadhi and her use of hair, linked
the artist with the local people she worked
with but was also seen to be a medium that
can span borders. Marianne Hulsboschs has
written about hair jewellery of Molluccan
women of the Dutch East Indies, which hence
brings us back to the traditional importance
of adorning hair.

Chaya Chandrasekhar speaks of the hand

painted patterns drawn on a threshold
common in South Asian homes, and also
reminds us that these types of traditions
continue to endure around the world. The
jewellery artist Bic Tieu will travel around the
world in pursuit of her passion, as she did by
going to study in the workshop of Unryuan
in Japan to acquire her lacquer experience.
Yeehwan Yeos review about the Indonesian
performance artist Melati Suryodarmo who
performed at the OzAsia in Adelaide, and
will also perform at the Asia Pacific Triennial
in December, also brought home how many
Asian women artists have actually been
involved in international art circuits.
Mark Harrisons review on Shawna Yang
Ryans recently published book Green Island
conveys how the story deeply expresses
the generational influences the history and
politics of Taiwan has on a family. Christine
Clark interviewed the artist Savanhdary
Vongpoothorn, an artist who takes much
inspiration from the world around her and
explores her most recent trip to India. John
Millbanks review of the recipes from Koo
Siu Lings family provides insight into a book
that also speaks about the role of women in
the culture of the East Javanese Peranakans.
This issue covers Asian women working in
Asia and also women who are part of the
diaspora living abroad. Things are not so
black and white, as artists move more than
ever before, not only to live and study, but
to experience art and life in different places.
Their bases can also be attached to more than
one country. I hope this issue about Asian
Women Artists primarily acknowledges the
strength, contribution and expertise women
of the region have made to the arts.

TAASA would like to wish our members

all the very best for the holiday season.
We had a very full events calendar in
2015, and have ended the year with a
major milestone the launch of our new
website. We look forward to offering
another stimulating year of Asian art
events in 2016.

W OM E N R E - MOD E LLIN G ART W ORLDS : E X H I B ITIONS AND P RO J E C TS

ON SO U T H E AST ASIAN W OM E N ARTISTS ( 1 9 9 0 - 2 0 1 5 )
Galeri Seniwati Bali, Ubud, Bali (now in Batubulan,

Yvonne Low

Denpasar, Bali). Image provided by IVAA.

Photo: Mary Northmore

nterest in the histories of women artists,

particularly in Southeast Asia, is often
observed as a relatively recent phenomenon,
evident from the sharp increase in countryfocused publications on women artists.
Exhibition and book projects such as: Holding
up half the sky (2006), Indonesian women artists:
the curtain opens (2007), Changing identity:
recent works by women artists from Vietnam
(2007), Myanmar women artists (2009), Women
artists in Singapore (2011) and Tiga sezaman,
three contemporaries (2012) are typically the
result of concerted efforts by women exposed
to feminist-inspired discourses. These women
have been motivated by the need to give due
recognition to womens artistic contributions
in the modern art world.

Women artists as a topic did not significantly

interest Euramerican art historians until the
1970s, following Linda Nochlins 1971 essay
Why have there been no great women artists?.
Feminist historians have since demonstrated
that terms used in art history determinants
of greatness are not gender-neutral. Such
socially constructed categories maintain the
canonical status of male artists and ensure
the privileging of male taste. This in turn has
led to a global increase in studies that seek to
evaluate the social processes of art production
and expose gender bias in art institutions.
The general absence of women artists in
history imply womens belated entrance
into the art scene. Yet, as Nira Yuval-Davies
reminds us, women did not just enter the
national arena: they were always there, and
central to its constructions and reproductions!
(1997: 3). In the face of damning evidence of
gender disparity, female cultural practitioners
and art historians have variously sought to
empower women artists in women-centred
public spaces, and to recover the forgotten

histories of women artists vis--vis discursive

intervention. In outlining a brief history of
their work, my objective is two-pronged:
to examine the strategies undertaken, and
to recover the recent history of women remodelling the art worlds of Southeast Asia.
The 1990s saw a significant rise in a range
of cross-cultural, feminist-inspired projects.
These included public spaces for women
such as Galeri Seniwati Bali (1991-present)
and Womanifesto (1997-present), womens
forums such as Women imaging women:
home, body, memory (1998 and 1999), and
womens exhibitions such as Text and subtext:
international contemporary Asian women artists
exhibition (2001). Initiated almost wholly by
female professionals (artists, academics and
curators), these projects signified an increase in
awareness toward gender consciousness in art.
According to Mary Northmore, an Indonesian
citizen of English origin, it was the strong
denial of women artists in certain Balinese
systems that led to her founding the countrys
first womens art gallery in Ubud with the
sole aim of promoting, supporting and
encouraging women artists who live and
work in Bali. Described as the only gallery of
its kind in Asia, Galeri Seniwati Bali has since
re-located to Batubulan and is presently under
the direction of Ni Nyoman Sani. Northmore
recalled how Ni Made Suciarmi, whose
existence was denied within academic circles
in Bali, was one of the reasons why she felt
compelled to establish an art space exclusively
and unapologetically for women (The Jakarta
Post, 8 Dec, 2011).
Though Suciarmi had displayed immense
talent since the age of six and began sketching
and painting in the Kamasan style at nine,
according to their tradition, it was deemed

unusual for a woman to be recognised as the

artist. In her cultural context, men painted and
women wove cloth; but as fate would have it,
Suciarmi preferred painting to weaving and
after impressing her modern thinking father
with her sketches of Arjuna, she was awarded
the rare access to train as a painter.
Siobhan
Campbells
recent
study
demonstrates how the production process
of Kamasan paintings followed a rigid
hierarchal system, in which typically the more
highly regarded tasks such as composing the
narrative and sketching (nyeket, ngereka) were
completed by men, and the less important
tasks of painting (colouring) and marketing of
paintings by women (Campbell 2013).
Thus, an art space such as Galeri Seniwati
Bali serves to empower women whose talent
is suppressed because of gender bias. Its
so-called showspace presents regular onewoman and group shows from Indonesia and
across the world and conducts a wide range
of workshops and activities for women and
children. Such women-centred spaces serve
to close the gap between women artists and
their male counterparts, even where overt
bias isnt evident. Very rarely do institutions
and the wider society take into consideration
the impediments women may face because of
their circumstances.

Nariphon III, Acrylic on Silk, 90 x 90 cm each, 1996. Image courtesy of Phaptawan Suwannakudt

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

She and Her Dishcover (1991), Amanda Heng, Mixed media and found objects. Photo: Yvonne Low

Womanifesto, on the other hand, does

not operate from a permanent office. As
explained by an early member, Phaptawan
Suwannakudt, Womanifesto is not a formal
organisation, but it offers many women
artists, herself included, a mental space
(Womanifesto website, accessed 1 September
2011). Their first exhibition Tradisexion (1995),
was held at the Concrete House Art Centre,
an NGO working with prostitutes and AIDS
victims in suburban North Bangkok from
which Womanifesto grew. This dedicated
group of women artists has continued to
build an international platform for women,
developing a diverse range of activities
spanning community-based workshops,
book and internet-related projects, and more
recently residencies.
Not unlike Suciarmi, Phaptawans training
in the fine tradition of temple mural painting
went against a tradition of male painters. Her
father, Paiboon, was a well-known master of
Thai mural painting who had revived this
dead art. After his death, Phaptawan became
one of the first women to paint Thai temple
murals. But it was the injustice inflicted
on others that prompted Phaptawans
involvement with womens groups, and at
times inspired the subject matter of her later
contemporary practice.
Her Nariphon III series, displayed in the
first Womanifesto exhibition (1997), refers
poignantly to the 12-year-old girl who was
sold by her parents to a brothel agency in
front of the temple where Phaptawan was
then painting in 1990. The background of
the triptych against which the girls all
identical stand, changes from green to red to
brown, echoing the life cycle of fruit. Viewed
in its entirety, the series makes a powerful
statement against the continual exploitation
of innocent people.
Womanifesto exhibitions have since evolved
to galvanize greater community exchange,
impact and engagement; in 2001, it took the
form of a 10-day community workshop.
Operating out of rural northeast Thailand,
this innovative project facilitated dialogue
between city-based professionals and the
people of the Si Saket province. Described
as the first of its kind in Asia, Womanifesto
remains true to its objective statement:
To promote a greater awareness of women in
the society in which they exist by presenting
their ways of thinking and doing things,
which will ultimately [affect] among other
things, the conservation of our environment
as a whole. (Womanifesto website, accessed
1 September 2011)

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Here, at least two critical propositions

underpin the work of women artists first,
women are clearly capable of initiating
change, and second, womens ways of thinking
and doing things are different. Both return us to
the heart of all feminist debates and inquiry
is there a feminist or feminine aesthetic?
What, then, are the conditions for womens
independent artistic development?
Unsurprisingly, all these were familiar
issues raised during the seminal 1998/99
series of exhibits-conferences held in Manila.
An academically driven project, Women
imaging women pursued the discussion from
a regionalist perspective and examined the
works of 50 women artists from four Southeast
Asian countries, namely the Philippines,
Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. Flaudette
May V. Datuin, the co-organiser, argued
compellingly for a place for Southeast Asian

artists whom she saw were underrepresented

and undocumented in publications, critical
reviews and exhibitions (1999).
Also developed during this period were two
other significant anthologies on Asian women
artists: Asian women artists (1996) and Text and
subtext (2001). Edited by Dinah Dysart and
Hannah Fink, Asian women artists was the
first gender-oriented publication of its kind.
Arranged by order of country, the range and
scope of the essays included country-specific
overviews that described womens recent entry
into male-dominated spheres as modern and/
or contemporary art practitioners, case-studies
of select artists, movements or womens art
spaces, and brief historical surveys of feminist art
movements. Many were undoubtedly conceived
as recovery projects, broadly understood
as scholarly attempts to identify and give
recognition to forgotten women artists.

Painting of a palindon calendar, Ni Made Suciarmi, Kamasan, Bali.

Collection of Australian Museum. Photo: Emma Furno

the question of women of genius or

notables and worthies; such categories
are after all patriarchally framed, affirming
the value system defined and recognised
by men (1993: 16). In this regard, neither a
compensatory history nor a history about
women as victims would suffice to recover their
histories for they are both methodologically
flawed and analytically limiting.
Without clearly identifying from what women
artists are to be recovered, such projects
may run the risk of committing yet another
common pitfall that is, relegating women
to a separate chapter, book or gallery. They
function, in the words of Barbara Andaya, to
present female participation as simply an
insertion, an interruption in a metanarrative
dominated by men (2000: 26).

Clearly
there
are
common
threads
underpinning the production and reception
of representations of women that are closely
related to the social position of women artists
though these have yet to be cohesively
examined within a broader regional cultural
context. Text and subtext, curated by Binghui
Huangfu (then curator of Earl Lu Gallery,
Singapore), may well be the first Asian
women oriented project to have taken place
inside Asia, but it too failed to cogently put
forth suitable theoretical apparatus to discuss
gender within the context of Asian art in what
appears to be a decisive move away from
merely recovering forgotten women.
Conceived as an ambitious travelling
exhibition, Text and subtext produced a scholarly
catalogue discussing womens involvement
in contemporary art. Arranged by order of
country, many addressed the discourse of
feminism and feminist art developments and
presented in case-study format micro-histories
of the rise of feminist pursuits in art. However,
not unlike Women imaging women, there was
little consensus on the use of terms such as
feminist art, womens art and feminine art
particularly where writers found it necessary
to re-define and qualify their usage in their
studies; if a frame of reference was cited, it was
frequently Euramerican in origin.
On the other hand, book-length projects
such as Women artists in Singapore (2011)
clearly worked within the country-focused
model. But it too, struggled to extend the
discourse initiated by its predecessors. It was
decided that a small hanging of artworks by
the relevant artists should accompany the
launch of the publication. Perhaps in part to

demonstrate institutional support, selected

artworks were drawn from the National
Heritage Board collection and the exhibition
was held at the Singapore Art Museum.
With little curatorial design or direction, the
exhibition served as visual testimonials of
womanhood that had very little to do with the art
discourse itself. Amanda Hengs conceptuallydriven piece, She and Her Dishcover (1991), which
describes womens conditions through the use
of ready-made objects, is visibly dislocated from
the period in which this piece was first made,
when existing norms and conventions of artmaking, in particular sculpture-making, were
questioned and tested.

The ideological explication of feminism, and the

urgent task of writing about the work of women
artists may have remained largely constrained
by nationalist or regionalist parameters with
yet few, cogent attempts to analyse common
patterns and problems. Nonetheless, as this brief
survey of feminist-inspired projects has shown,
the work undertaken by female art historians
and cultural practitioners has provided clear
evidence of women themselves taking the first
step toward understanding their conditions and
re-modelling the art worlds of Southeast Asia.
Yvonne Low is a tutor at University of Sydney and a
Project Administrator for the Getty-funded research
project, Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of
Southeast Asian Art, operating out of the Power
Institute. She writes on the modern and contemporary
arts of Southeast Asia and was recently awarded her
doctoral degree for her thesis Women artists: Becoming

The assemblage, made up of a plastic dish

cover, a mirror and a pair of red divination
blocks, stood in crude contrast to the nearby
display of polished ceramic pieces by Jessie
Lim, a professional ceramic sculptor clearly
operating in a separate sphere. Perhaps this
projects strongest contribution was quite
simply an affirmation that women artists
living in Singapore (though not necessarily
Singaporeans) were present throughout
history. Yet, to delimit the scope, the author,
Bridget Tracy Tan, inadvertently imposed a set
of criteria that took the form of both qualitative
measurement (for example, women who
were visibly renowned) and quantitative
measurement. This was often determined by
how extensively they have been collected, the
number of awards and accolades and how
widely they have exhibited internationally.

professional in Singapore, Malaya and Indonesia.

REFERENCES
Andaya, Barbara (ed.), 2000. Other pasts: Women, gender and
history in early modern Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii, Hawaii
Campbell, Siobhan Louise, 2013. Collecting Balinese Art: The
Forge Collection of Balinese Paintings at the Australian Museum in
Sydney, University of Sydney, PhD [unpublished],
Datuin, Flaudette and Flores, Patrick (eds), 1999. Women imaging
Women: Home, Body, Memory, Papers from the Conference on
artists from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, Cultural
Center of the Philippines (March 11-14, 1999)
Lerner, Gerda, 1993. The creation of feminist consciousness from the
Middle Ages to eighteen-seventy, Oxford University Press, New York
Nochlin, Linda, 1971. Why have there been no great women
artists? in Art and sexual politics: Womens liberation, women
artists, and art history (eds.), 1973.Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth
C. Baker. Collier-Macmillan, New York) 1-43
http://www.womanifesto.com/womanfest01.htm [accessed on
1 September 2011]
Sertori, Trisha. Painting pioneer a living treasure, The Jakarta
Post, Dec 8, 2011

Such an approach, though common, is not

without its pitfall. Feminist historian, Gerda
Lerner, once cautioned against approaching

Yuval-Davis, Nira, 1997. Gender and Nation, Sage Publications,

London

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

TRANS F E RR E D B E A U T Y T H E H AIR ART O F L E E S E K Y U N G

Khanh Trinh

n recent years, female Korean artists

such as Yeesookyung (b. 1963) and Shin
Meekyong (b. 1967) have garnered much
attention on the international art stage for
their inventive re-interpretations of classic
Korean craft objects. Using different materials
- Yee works mainly with porcelain while
Shin primarily uses soap - both of their
practices are informed by Asian ceramics,
more specifically Joseon period (1392-1910)
porcelain. Lee Sekyung (b. 1973) is rapidly
joining the ranks of this illustrious duo. Her
large scale installation Hair on carpet and Hair
on plate series belong to the most exciting
discoveries in the acclaimed show Beyond and
Between, organised by the Leeum Samsung
Museum in 2014 for its 10th anniversary.

In literature and the arts, eyes are often referred

to as the window to a persons soul and lips
compared to rose buds, but no other part of
the human body has such rich symbolism and
exerts an enduring fascination that transcends
cultural borders as hair. Its length, colour
and shape can be an indicator of age, race
and gender, while how its worn covered,
braided, bound up and so forth can reveal
social status, ethnic or religious affiliation.
Hair enthuses and enchants, but only as long
as it is alive. Once detached from the head it
is just a nuisance and even elicits repulsion.
The preoccupation with these contradictory
values of hair has set Lee Sekyung on a journey
to explore the potential of discarded hair as a
medium of expression. Lee states:

A native of Seoul, Lee graduated with an

MFA degree in crafts from Sungshin Womens
University in 1998, where she specialised
in ceramics. In the same year, she moved to
Germany with her artist husband and enrolled
in the Academy of Fine Arts, Mnster. In 2001,
Lee was accepted in the masterclass of the
Belgian installation artist Guillaume Bijl. Under
Bijls tutelage, she began to shift her practice
towards installation, creating environments of
transformed reality through the assemblage of
ready-mades and materials that are familiar in
daily life in this case, human hair.

Ever since I was a child, I have always had

long hair and have many fond memories about
my long hair. I have always thought the hair
is a symbol of womens beauty so I have taken
really good care of my long hair and have
had some kind of obsession with it until now.
However, this attachment to my hair has also
been quite a nuisance. I received a lot scolding
from my mother regarding the fallen hair all
over the house.

Hair is part of the body to be decorated and

cared for, and is often considered a symbol

of beauty but it is a subject of filth and

dirtiness when you find it on the bathroom
floor or around the dinner table. This double
sidedness with its instantaneous shift in
meaning is what drew me towards it, making
hair an extremely fascinating medium for me.
I studied ceramics in Korea. After I went
to Germany to study Fine Art, I started to
sincerely contemplate my work. The first
difference that I noticed immediately between
Korea and Germany was hair colour. Being in
this unfamiliar country far away from home
made me deeply think of myself and this
thought was naturally conveyed in my work
with hair. Since then, I have put this duplicity
of both material and cultural aspects into
my works with hair. (Excerpt from emailinterview with the artist, August 2015)
Lee first began with gluing single strands
of hair on paper to create detailed, exacting
figurative compositions easily be mistaken for
fine pencil drawings. The discovery that hair
loses its innate properties in this process and
becomes a pictorial element was fascinating
and inspired Lee to search for further
exploitations of this medium. Challenging
the commonly accepted negative connotation
of dead hair as unhygienic germ carrier, Lee
transferred her hair drawings onto mass-

Transfer_East to West, Lee Sekyung 2010. Dyed human hair, white plates, coating, each 27 cm (D). Photo: Lee, Changwon the Artist

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Hair on carpet (onsite installation at SongEun ArtSpace), Lee Sekyung 2013. Dyed human hair,
carpet, 300 x 700 cm. Photo: Kwon, Oh-Yeol. Courtesy: SongEun ArtSpace

the tiny bits of hair one by one on the carpet is

a training in adjusting the mind and body, or
as a ritualistic enactment of an ardent desire
(Samsung Foundation website, accessed 2015).
For this exhibition, visitors are allowed to walk
on the carpet. The chance to engage directly
with the exhibit enhances the audiences
experience, but also makes it more complex: the
admiration for the artists intense labour and
technical skills is mixed with the unpleasant
sensation of walking on discarded hair and the
fear of destroying an artwork.

produced, undecorated porcelain tableware,

ceramic tiles or even porcelain door handles
and soap, turning them into aesthetically
appealing objects. Dyed in red and blue
tones the strands of hair are painstakingly
glued onto the smooth porcelain ground.
Motifs from East Asian blue-and-white
wares, Dutch and Portuguese tile patterns,
Russian constructivist design vocabulary or
the characteristic onion patterns of Meissen
porcelain popular in 1930s Germany are
appropriated to decorate the vessels.
The craftsmanship is mind-boggling, and
even though some of Lees works in the series
Hair on plate seem to be near perfect imitations
of original historical pieces, her practice goes
beyond appropriation and reproduction. Her
porcelains are not intended as individual
unique objects, but have to be understood as
an installation work. The objects are displayed
as an ensemble in perfectly lit showcases or
on plinths covered in velvet simulating a
museums context, challenging the audiences
perception on multiple levels. What at first
sight appears like a Joseon period blue-andwhite dish is actually a contemporary readymade decorated with meticulously glued-on
dyed hair. And hair on a plate? Normally,
this would be unacceptable to diners, but
Lees hair-decorated tableware offers such a
pleasant aesthetic experience that the idea to
eat from them no longer seems absurd.
Hair on plate has been exhibited various
times in Germany as well as in Korea, and
interestingly, the reaction of the audience is
widely different.
I felt big differences when I had many
exhibitions in Korea as well as Europe. The

work with hair first began in Germany. In

Germany, despite some unpleasant experience
with the hair in the work, most of people well
understood the uniqueness expressed by an
artist and they conceived of the concept and
handicraft technics in the work as some kind of
way to cultivate ones mind about Asia. I was
working with Gallery Schmela in Duesseldorf
at this time and lots of works were sold to
German or European collectors. After a while, I
had a chance to have a solo exhibition in Korea.
Interestingly, Korean viewers thought the hair
as a filthy and disgusting material and such a
negative reaction was more than I expected.
(Excerpt from email-interview with the artist,
August 2015)
The same concept of bringing together hair
and objects of quotidian life in what is usually
considered an unpleasant combination is
applied in the large-scale installation Hair on
carpet. Realised for the first time in 2004 for
the Wewerka Pavilion in Mnster, this work
is produced on site and lasts for the duration
of the exhibition. Lee uses a custom-made
monochrome rug as base, upon which she
distributes tiny hair fragments dyed in black
to form floral patterns borrowed from Persian
or Chinese carpets. The result is so stunning
nobody would take offense at the fact that
there is hair and even heaps of it on the
carpet! Normality returns at the end of the
show, as the hair is vacuumed away and the
carpet cleaned.
Lee takes this installation to a further dimension
for the Leeum Samsung exhibition in 2014.
Over several months, she decorates a 19m long
carpet with intricate hair designs that cover
the long ramp leading to the main exhibition
space. For Lee the laborious process of fixing

After resettling in Seoul in 2011, Lee started a

new approach to working with hair. The series
Recollection was conceived for her first solo
exhibition in Korea, hosted by the innovative,
non-profit SongEun Art Space in 2013. Up to
this point, Lee normally uses her own hair, or
the hair of family members and close friends.
For the new project, members of the public
are invited to provide the artist with a short
account of their fondest memory together
with some of their own hair. These are worked
into hair paintings on white ceramic tiles.
The project poses new challenges for Lee. For
one, she has to find a visual representation
that bears justice to somebody elses memory.
Further, the quantity and quality of hair
provided might not be sufficient to complete
the painting. The results and responses for
this project are however so overwhelmingly
positive that Lee intends to expand the project
further and to include the participation of
people she is personally interested in.
Lees hair art is not a singular phenomenon
in contemporary art practices, there are a
number of male and female artists worldwide
who work primarily with hair as a medium.
What is remarkable in her work is not only
the high level of craftsmanship but also the
freshness of her conceptual framework.
Beyond an instantaneous gratifying visual
experience, her objects and installations
engage the audience intellectually, inviting us
to reflect on the mutability of our perception
and appreciation of something that is as
common as hair.
Dr Khanh Trinh specialises in Japanese and Korean
art. She has curated several major exhibitions for
the AGNSW and lectured and published widely on
contemporary Asian art. She is presently Curator of
Japanese art at the Rietberg Museum, Zurich.

REFERENCES
http://leeum.samsungfoundation.org/html_eng/exhibition/main_
view.asp, accessed 21/08/2015

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

AT T H E T H R E S H OLD : INDIA S W OM E N , ART AND C U LT U RAL C ONTIN U IT Y

Chaya Chandrasekhar
Woman making a diagram with rice flour and coloured powders, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
Photo 2015 courtesy of Chandini Harlalka

ach morning Sarita Kommireddy steps

out of her home and sprinkles water
on the ground by her front door. As the sun
rises, she draws delicate patterns on the
clean, damp earth. Todays design includes
six geometric floral motifs arranged around
a central blossom. Interlocking diamond
shapes encircle the central flower, while a
swirling scroll motif forms the diagrams
perimeter. Tomorrow, Kommireddy will
create another unique pattern, drawing from
the rich repertoire passed down to her from
her mother, and her mothers mother before
that. But for today, she is pleased with what
she sees at the threshold of her home. Now
she can carry on with the remainder of her
domestic responsibilities.

Hand-drawn diagrams such as those created by

Kommireddy are seen throughout South Asia.
Visitors will notice designssometimes small
and unassuming, and at other times large and
colourfulmarking the entrances to homes,
shrines, and occasionally even businesses.
This ritual art form is primarily the purview of
women, and is intended to ward off negativity
and to protect the premises (Huyler 2001: 70).
The drawings at the threshold also serve as a
visual invitation to passersby, indicating that
the home is well-tended and open to guests.
One may walk down a street in India, where
house after house along the way displays
these entrance drawings as declaration of its
auspicious condition.
Kommireddy, however, does not live in South
Asia. Instead, she makes her daily drawings
in an apartment complex in Norman, a small
university town in the south central, Midwest
state of Oklahoma, in the United States.
What compels young immigrant women like
Kommireddy to carry on the tradition outside
of the South Asian sphere? What purposes
might the diagrams serve where few, if any,
onlookers understand their connotations of
auspiciousness and hospitality?
Women opting to draw the diagrams in the
diaspora speak to the traditions central
importance and ubiquity throughout the
subcontinent. This ritual art, primarily
associated with Hinduism, also serves as a
visible religious marker. Further, according
to anthropological studies, the diagrams
articulate notions of social and national
identity and promote the idea of women as
bearers of Indian culture.

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

The
hand-drawn
designs,
practiced
throughout much of India, are known by
different names in different regions. For
example, in Tamil Nadu, where the tradition
is especially widespread, they are referred to
as kolam, a word that means beauty or form
in the vernacular Tamil language (Nagarajan
2010). Elsewhere, they are called rangoli or
rangavalli, terms derived from Sanskrit to
mean celebration in colour. In Andhra
Pradesh, Komireddys home state, they are
called muggu (floor pattern).
Despite their prevalence throughout the
subcontinent, the history of the practice
remains unclear. Earliest references to making
drawings on the ground appear in Vedic

literature (c.1500 BCE), according to Vijaya

Nagarajan, an authority on the study of the
ritual art in Tamil Nadu (Nagarajan 2010). The
practice also relates to the ancient tradition of
mandalas and yantras (sacred diagrams and
symbols) common to several South Asian
religions, including forms of Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Jainism. 11th -13th century
epigraphic records refer to making patterns
on temple floors as part of a womans duties.
By the 17th century, vernacular literature
stipulates that household women should
decorate thresholds of homes with designs
(Nagarajan 2010).
Traditionally, the diagrams are made with
white rice flour. Either squatting on their

Diagrams at the entrances of homes, Karnataka, India. Photo 2015 courtesy of Lekha Chandrashekar (left); 2015 courtesy of Chandini Harlalka (right)

haunches or bending straight from the waist,

women take pinches of the flour between the
thumbs and forefingers of their right hand and
drop them carefully on the ground to create
a grid of equidistant dots. The design is then
made by either joining the dots or by weaving
and curving a single line around the dots
to create a labyrinthine form. If the woman
desires, she might embellish the diagram by
filling in the outlines with coloured powders.
Depending on size and complexity, threshold
diagrams may take a few minutes to hours
to complete. At about five or six years of age,
girls watch their mothers or other older female
family members make the designs, and then
practice to become proficient by the time they
reach their teenage years. Once adept, women
might modify old drawings, experiment,
and create new designs. The practice allows
individual creative expression, spontaneity,
and experimentation.
Made out in the open and with largely
perishable materials, the diagrams are
intended to be entirely ephemeral. Those
entering the home tread upon the designs, or
other passersby and traffic erase them as they
walk, bike, or drive past. Wind and rain also
wipe away the drawings. Even though the
more elaborate designs might take women
several hours to create, their disappearance is
inevitable. Indeed, the transient and varying
nature of the diagrams, I suggest, relates to
core South Asian religio-cultural ideas.
Creating the diagrams anew each day, only
for them to disappear and be recreated, echoes
the cyclical nature of existence that forms the
basis of South Asian religious thought and
practice. Specifically, it refers to the idea of
samsara, or the continuous cycles of birth,

10

death, and rebirth. Not unlike the drawings,

life in the South Asian context is perceived as
fleeting, transitory and ever shifting, yet it is
also recurring and continuous.
The diagrams might also reflect the
fundamental idea of Brahman, the absolute
or universal, from which all matter emanates
and into which all matter ultimately coalesces.
In South Asian thought, Brahman is all
encompassing, limitless, and eternal. It is the
seed of all potentiality that is constant, yet in
perpetual flux of manifestation, dissolution,
and regeneration. As noted above, most
diagrams begin with establishing a grid
of dots. Therefore, a single point, or bindu
(dot), forms the basis of the diagrams. The
quintessentially South Asian bindu represents
the universal Brahman in its unmanifested
form. Like matter that emerges from the
absolute seed of potential, the diagram
radiates from the dot(s) or point(s) of origin,
manifesting and morphing into geometrical,
symmetrical and figural forms.
The diagrams also embed the idea of infinity
associated with the all-pervasive, eternal
Brahman. The designs frequently consist of
subunits, which can be repeated over and
over again, essentially to infinity, to form
larger, more expansive patterns. In the
labyrinthine designs, a single continuous line
weaves around the grid of dots, intersecting
or crossing over itself to form a wholly
integrated, endless knot.
As it is Hindus that predominantly make
the threshold diagrams, the patterns reflect
ideas important to the tradition, like ritual
purity, respect and reciprocity and karmic
responsibilities. Making a diagram begins with

cleansing the ground, ritually transforming

ordinary space into purified space. The
drawing produced on the cleansed ground
announces that the home beyond the entrance
is unpolluted and ritually pure, open and
appropriate for receiving guests, both earthly
and divine (Nagarajan 2010). Traditional
ideas associated with ritual pollution prevent
the women of the household from making
the drawings during menstruation, or while
mourning a death in the family. The absence
of the drawing announces that the home is,
for the moment, unable to receive visitors.
Through the drawings, women call upon
deities to enter their home and support
their families. Lakshmi, the goddess of
wealth and good fortune, and the elephantheaded Ganesh, the remover of obstacles,
are particularly important guests, who help
protect and sustain the home. Drawing the
designs also helps to fulfil karmic duties.
Aware of their ephemeral state, women
make the designs to demonstrate their
respect for Bhudevi, the earth goddess, upon
whom they must inevitably step (Nagarajan
2010). Additionally, a Hindu is expected to
altruistically feed a thousand beings each day
to counter any negative karmic effects. The
edible rice flour traditionally used to make
the diagrams feeds insects, birds, and other
critters each day, allowing the household
to carry out an essential karmic obligation
(Nagarajan 2010).
Beyond religious affiliations, the diagrams
take on meaning as markers of social
identity within a South Asia that is today
increasingly modern and global. Since
economic liberalisation in the early 1990s,
India has witnessed sweeping social and

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Diagram created using stencils, Chikmagalur, Karnataka, India. Photo 2015 courtesy of Lekha Chandrashekar

cultural changes. Many scholars claim

that globalisation has eroded core values,
traditions, and beliefs, leaving a diluted,
homogenised version of Indian culture.
Socio-economic changes have also prompted
shifting attitudes towards family, education,
career, and community among women in
India. Many South Asian women today are
not satisfied to identify themselves simply
as daughters, sisters, wives, or mothers,
but assert multiple notions of the self
(Bucholtz and Hall 2005). In such a changing
environment, one might expect old, ritual
traditions like threshold diagrams to be on
the decline. However, the practice persists,
not just in Indias villages but also within its
urban landscape.
A large number of urban homes, across
class and caste, exhibit diagrams at their
entrances. When time does not allow for an
elaborate drawing, a simple design marks the
ground. Women may also rely on stencils to
mechanically produce the designs or use semipermanent sticker adhesives. Alternatively,
patterns may be painted in front of doorways.
The painted forms are not created daily, are
not as ephemeral as the diagrams made of rice
powder and do not feed a thousand beings.
However, they continue to convey that the
household is harmonious and functioning
within the expectations of society.
In the traditional Indian context, to be socially
appropriate, a household must comprise a
dutiful family unit, with each member playing
his or her prescribed role. Householders must
be religiously minded, karmically conscious,
and altruistically responsible members of
the community. Through the drawings at
the entrance to a home, the woman of a
household projects these inherent values, and,
as part of her domestic duties, establishes an
acceptable place for her family within society.
Auke Smit, in her study of the practice in
contemporary Tamil Nadu, discusses how
among the urban middleclass, the diagrams
are framed around a discourse of morality
and respectability (Smit 2013: 38). The
absence of the threshold diagrams may lead
to the perception among neighbours that the
family focuses on material interests over the
spiritual, and embraces westernised values
over traditional ones (Ibid). A family that
espouses a more westernised lifestyle is
perceived as being less Indian.
The designs in a globalised, contemporary
India therefore function as national rather
than specifically traditional regional symbols.
Renate Dohmen observes this phenomenon
through an examination of magazines
devoted to threshold designs now published

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

and available for the countrys urban,

middleclass consumption. She notes that most
of the magazines present designs from various
parts of India within a single publication,
making little or no references to their regional
distinctions. Additionally, most magazines do
not include text, presumably to circumvent
the varied vernaculars of Indias readers.
When text, mostly in the form of an editors
notes, is present, it is written in English rather
than a regional tongue. The overall purpose
of the magazines, Dohmen concludes, is to
preserve the tradition not in terms of the local,
but as a vital aspect of a common, national
heritage (Dohmen 2001: 134).
Perceived both as a regional custom and as
a more wide-spread, time-honoured Indian
tradition, it is not surprising that threshold
diagrams are not only practiced throughout
India, but also among the South Asian
diaspora populations. When immigrant
women like Kommireddy make the patterns
outside their homes in the United States or
elsewhere, they may well be displaying their
South Asian identity, rather than specifically
traditional regional and religious affiliations.
The diagrams assert the familys Indianness,
while helping to bridge the gap between
home and away.
Threshold designs are as multivalent as they
are ubiquitous. Just as they concurrently
declare a households religious, social, and
national identity, they also point to womens
historical role as the bearers of continuity and
tradition. Dohmen remarks: Historically
the image of woman was the preferred sign
for the nationaland woman was elected as
guardian of Indianness, a territory closely
associated with religion and the arts

(Dohmen 2001: 135). By displaying the

diagrams daily as part of her domestic duties,
an Indian woman plays her role as sustainer,
her protective sphere expanding in everwidening circles.
With the drawings at her homes threshold,
she garners the protection of the gods for
the family and prepares the home to receive
guests. Through the patterns, she affirms
her familys religious proclivity, fulfils its
obligations to community, and maintains
the households standing within society.
She co-opts the patterns to defend against
homogenising global influences and, beyond
South Asia, to construe and convey in a small
way what it might mean to be Indian.
Chaya Chandrasekhar is an independent scholar of
Indian Art, based in the United States. She has taught
art history at universities in the USA and has served as
curator of South Asian Art in Australia.

REFERENCES
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall, 2005. Identity and interaction: a
sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7: 585-614
Dohmen, Renate. Happy Homes and the Indian Nation. Journal
of Design History 14, no. 2, 2001: 129-139
Huyler, Stephen P. The Art of Worship. Natural History 110.7,
2001: 70.
Nagarajan, Vijaya, 2010. Rangoi and Kolam. In Brills
Encyclopedia of Hinduism, volume II, edited by K.A. Jacobsen,
H. Basu, A. Malinar, and V. Narayanan, 472-478. Leiden: E.J.
Brill, Sahapedia. Accessed August 3, 2015. http://sahapedia.org/
rangoli-and-kolam/.
Smit, Auke, 2013. The Art of Longing and Belonging: Kolam as a
Reflection of Women s Complex Relations with Identity and Power
in Contemporary India. Unpublished thesis, University of Utrecht..
Academia. Accessed July 18, 2015. http://www.academia.
edu/7005323/The_Art_of_Longing_and_Belonging_Kolam_as_a_
Reflection_of_Women_s_Complex_Relations_with_Identity_and_
Power_in_Contemporary_India.

11

R H E IM AL K AD H I : T H E P OLITI C S O F E X C H AN G E
Jane Somerville
Collective knotting together of hairs 2012, Rheim ALKADHI, USA/Iraq. Documentation of social intervention, Palestine.
Commissioned for the Jerusalem Show / Riwaq Biennial. Image courtesy the artist

n a plinth at the 2015 Sharjah Biennial

sat a small sculpture made from
eyelashes attached together on a winding
strip a metaphor for the shoreline of Sharjah
Creek, in the United Arab Emirates. Titled
Communications from the field of contact (Each
hair is a tongue), 2014/2015, this diminutive
artwork by Rheim Alkadhi is the product of an
exchange between the artist and sea labourers
working on the Sharjah docks. Each eyelash
the small pieces of peripheral vision as
Alkadhis artist statement described them
was swapped for a cup of hot tea and biscuits.

Rheim Alkadhi was born in the United States

in 1973 but spent her early childhood in
Baghdad, Iraq, until 1980 when her family
moved permanently to the United States.
Alkadhis early years in Baghdad have had a
lasting impact on her life and work and it is a
recurring motif in her art practice. For example,
earlier works have used photographs she took
as a child in Baghdad and appropriated press
images of the war torn city in an attempt to
alter dominant narratives. Although Alkadhi
has been living and working in the Middle
East for several years, the artist has not been
able to return to the city of her childhood.
She explains:
Baghdad was the context where I developed
socially in a crucial phase of independent,
adolescent contact with the world. Materials
and aesthetics I still gravitate toward now
are absolutely traceable to the conditions of
my years there, and not based on nostalgia
but on a primary consciousness of what
comprised the entire world at that timeI
havenever returned because the situation is
so dangerous. It rejects me. Its more and more
a stranger and I cant ever get close enough.
(email interview with author, 2 October 2015)

Jerusalem, where the exhibition of Alkadhis

work would be held. It was a place the people
from Jamain could not travel to because of
checkpoints and travel restrictions imposed
upon Palestinians. During her time in Jamain,
Alkadhi lived with a Palestinian family of
three daughters and their mother. Each day
she sat with a group of women to knot hairs
together. This simple action saw Alkadhi
inserting herself within the social fabric of the
village.
Why hair? Alkadhis reason: How close can
I possibly get to a stranger? As she explains,

hair is a ubiquitous medium that can

span borders, both intimately private and in
some cases repellent. It is also an accessible
material acknowledging the play between
its disposability and its very personal nature.
Hair conveys the essence of a basic human
experience, which underpins Alkadhis
ultimate intention.
Exchanges are an integral factor in
understanding Alkadhis practice, harnessed
in the creation of objects or situations that
defy the usual expectation of the artist
produced object. In the most simple of

Overcoming conditions of estrangement is

a fundamental premise for Alkadhis work,
which could be described as being based on
social interactions within the various locations
and situations in which she finds herself.
For Collective knotting together of hairs, 2012,
Alkadhi requested hair from hairbrushes of
women in Jamain, a village in the Nablus
district on the West Bank, where the artist was
undertaking a two-month residency.
Alkadhis project was to knot together
individual hairs in order to create one long
line to cover the 40 kilometre distance to
Communications from the field of contact (each hair is a tongue) 2015, Rheim ALKADHI, USA/Iraq. Social intervention
along Sharjah Creek, Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. Photo credit: Deema Shahin. Image courtesy the artist

12

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

The Eye Theatre Closes Its Doors, and Opens Them Again (detail) 2015, Rheim ALKADHI, USA/Iraq.
Performance and mixed media installation. Image courtesy the artist

critiques the consequences of imperialism,

and responds to the injustice of global politics.
She describes her work as an expanding
visual practice the result of rejecting the
idea of nation and of not being based in a
single place. Working in a series of temporary
contexts, Alkadhis conceptual and portable
practice sees her operating within a system of
continual transformation.

arrangements, an object not only conjures

up a historical, social or political context,
but also through her engagements illustrates
a connection to people and their political
environs. Interactions with people at the
downtown markets was the beginning of the
works presented in the exhibition Here is my
life, which I devote to learning about you, 2013 at
Darat al Funun, Amman. The installation of a
variety of objects placed together according
to aesthetic, linguistic or serendipity
connections all began as products from an
exchange that Alkadhi had with stallholders.
These objects, often held or displayed against
the sellers bodies, were not purchased
and used as they were intended. They are
transformed into works imbued with multilayered meanings. System experiments (sewing
needles, plastic thread), 2013 is an ever-changing
sculptural form created from needles the artist
purchased from some Iraqi women. For the
artist the act of buying these needles signified a
meaningless yet delightful communication.
Each time the object is put down, its form
changes. This work, placed alongside, and in
conversation with, a deflated tire, Rubber tube,
once inflated carries the weight of a vehicle (from
a Palestinian man late on a Friday, along Saqf
ilSayl), 2013 yields interpretations concerning
the materials and, perhaps, an element of risk
or danger in the proximity of the two works.
Another work on the same bench Costume
for a fly, 2013 depicts a fly on the spout of
a kettle. Here, the term costume relates
to the notion that the object functions as a
replacement (or costume) for another thing.
Another work on a nearby wall Back brace

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

from injured laborer, valves from pressure cookers,

2013 relates specifically to the body and the
idea of its costume. It features pressure valves
inserted into the back braces breathing
holes. Associations with bomb building or
the release of pressure from the body can be
drawn.
In relation to the way in which she operates,
Alkadhi states:
Exchange is a way of understanding very basic
human interactions; words, a look, a handshake,
an embrace. Rarely are they exchanged
symmetrically, but it signals a beginning and
that interests me. In these marginal economies
resides the potential for depth.
In the work discussed earlier, Communications
from the field of contact, the exchange was one
that was intentionally disruptive to the
existing economy. As she describes it:

For her upcoming work at the eighth Asia

Pacific Triennial (APT8) at the Queensland
Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane,
Alkadhi takes the photographic image as a
format in order to think through ideas about
the world. Using images taken or created in
the Gulf, Palestine and North Africa, Alkadhi
has created a set of boards with photographs
on one side, some with text on the reverse.
These boards will be part of a performative
lecture during the opening weekend, and
after the performance they will be on display
in the gallery for viewers to pick up and
examine. In effect, the objects in the gallery
act as a documentation of Alkadhis initial
performance. The text is a loose narrative,
echoing the structure of epic poetry, about
travelling to the sea tracing the path of the
Tigris reaching the Gulf, overflowing to the
Arabian Sea, then the ocean.
In a world where we are confronted daily with
a barrage of images, this new work, The Eye
Theatre Closes Its Doors and Opens Them Again,
2015 draws attention to the way we read
and interpret images. Alkadhis audiences
witness the performance or enact their own
narrative with the documentary materials
the viewer becomes part of the exchange
of ideas. For Alkadhi, those with whom
she conducts her collaborative projects are
her primary viewers. Together, artist and
audience undertake a mutual journey in their
engagement within the torrent of surfaces,
images and meanings.
Jane Somerville is a freelance editor and writer,

We were navigating at least five different

languages on the docks; while our
understandings were approximate, there was
an aspect of precision in the eyelash. The work
of these sea laborers hinges on the shipping
of goods to and from the Gulf region. Their
livelihood depends on a so-called circular
migration, implying some sort of closed route
of global exchange by sea. The docks are the
margins of larger global traffic/exchange over
liquid borders. I was interested in exchange
on a scale so minute as to be overlooked, and
I wanted to magnify that.

specialising in contemporary art, currently based in

Brisbane.

REFERENCES
All quotes from the artist are based on an email interview with the
author, 2 October 2015.
Video documentation of the exhibition Here is my life, which
I devote to learning about you, 2013 with Alkadhi discussing
the works can be viewed at: http://www.tasmeemme.com/en/
project/8701/-here-is-my-life--which-i-devote-to-learning-aboutyou-rheim-alkadhi

Though not obviously political, Alkadhi

navigates areas of crisis and instability,

13

W H AT E V E R H A P P E N E D TO R E H ANA ? H OMAI V Y ARA W ALLA S P H OTO G RA P H S

O F MOD E RN G IRLS AND T H E C U LT U RAL P RO J E C T O F NATIONALISM
Homai Vyarawalla photographing Ganesh Chaturthi

Sabeena Gadihoke

at Chowpatty beach, Bombay, late 1930s. Courtesy the Homai

Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

A longer version of this article was published in the

Trans Asia Photography Review in Spring 2012
(TAP Vol 2 Issue 2); http://tapreview.org./)

omai Vyarawalla, Indias first woman

press photographer, passed away in
early 2012 at the age of 98. Born in 1913,
Homai belonged to the more liberal Parsi
community and her early life was spent in
the cosmopolitan city of Bombay, where she
first learnt and practiced photography. In
1942, Homai and her husband Maneckshaw,
also a photographer, moved to Delhi to join
the publicity wing of the British war effort.
This relocation changed the nature of her
photography forever, catapulting Homai into
a completely different world of mainstream
nationalist politics in the capital.
In this curatorial selection, I attempt to
understand whether the early 1940s
prematurely stopped a very significant
direction that Homai Vyarawallas work
could have taken. As a press photographer,
she would henceforth document many iconic
moments of Indian independence and the
building of the nation. However, the need to
represent famous people and important events
also diverted her gaze away from other more
ordinary representations of everyday life,
including women. Returning to certain images
taken by Homai Vyarawalla in the late 1930s
and early 1940s in Bombay, I trace the figure
of the quintessential modern Indian girl in
her work.

Parsi women offer prayers on the occasion of

Avan Yazad Parab (Festival of the Waters) at
Chowpatty beach. In other photographs they
spin the Parsi kusti (sacred thread) or they
perform other religious ceremonies in indoor
settings. At times we see the women surrounded
by their families at picnics or outside the fire
temple at Dhobi Talao. In all these images, the
women are located within more traditional
and domestic settings and seem to have little in
common with Homai Vyarawallas own rather
unconventional persona as a young woman
photographer during this time.
Growing up in Bombay, Homai learnt
photography from her boyfriend, Maneckshaw,
who was a self-taught photographer. Her first
pictures were published in the Illustrated
Weekly of India under his name. The couple
walked the streets of the city photographing
its everyday rhythms. A symbol of modernity,
the camera gave Homai the opportunity to
be in spaces that would normally have been
inaccessible to a middle class Parsi girl of
her background. During this time she also
photographed others like herself. Photographs
from Homai Vyarawallas Bombay phase pays
tribute to some of these urban modern girls in
the late 1930s and early 1940s.
A striking young woman dominates many of
Homai Vyarawallas photographs of women

in Bombay. Rehana Mogul was Homais

classmate at the Sir J.J. School of Art in the late
1930s. Like an actress, she plays different roles
in these photographs. We see her in one of
Homais earliest pictures, taken in 1937, as she
poses with abandon at a girls picnic with head
thrown back and palm across her face, like a
diva. In this picture the decorum normally
associated with well brought up young ladies
is thrown to the winds, as she draws her sari
up to her knees, draping it like a Roman toga.

At first sight there is nothing extraordinary

about the images of women taken by Homai.
Among the many photographs of the building
of a modern Indian nationof steel plants,
dams, tuberculosis hospitals, flag hoisting
ceremonies and other ceremonial functions
we find first a few odd images of prominent
female political figures. There is Nehrus
daughter Indira Gandhi, of course, and
other prominent personalities such as the
poet Sarojini Naidu and Gandhis physician
Sushila Nayyer, pictured at his funeral.
One can sight more ordinary women in her
pictures of crowds, and two veiled women on
a rickshaw as they journey to cast their vote at
the first general elections.
Homai photographed many Hindu as well as
Parsi women performing rituals in Bombay in
the early 1940s. In these photographs Hindu
women immerse the Ganpati idol in water, and
The immersion of the idol of Ganesh during the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi at Chowpatty beach, Bombay, late 1930s.
Courtesy the Homai Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

14

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Rehana Mogul at a womens picnic, Bombay, late 1930s. Courtesy the Homai
Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

In one of Homais more famous photographs

she chips away at a sculpture in a workshop,
along with another classmate. Rehanas hair
is bobbed in the fashion of the day. The image
is a powerful one as it reverses the traditional
expectations of who gazes at whom in art
(Berger 1972). Unlike other photographs
taken by Homai of drawing sessions at the
school, this one has a bare bodied male model
on display in the background.
The image of Rehana Mogul is representative
of the idea of a modern girl. Looking at what
cultures of consumption may have meant
for women in particular, a consortium of
researchers across the world suggest that the
modern girl image was a global construction
of transnational companies and their
advertising strategies in the 1920s and 1930s
(Weinbaum et al 2008: 5). These researchers
argue that technologies of the self such
as lipstick, face creams, skin lighteners,
deodorants, cigarettes, high heels and
fashionable clothes literally changed bodies as
they enabled women to cross over from inner
to outer worlds (ibid: 18). As public women,
film stars may have been the most modern of
girls, but the most visible representation of the
modern girl in India was the urban collegiate
young woman. This was particularly true
for the Anglo-Indian and Parsi communities,
which were considered to be more liberal as
far as women were concerned.
If fashion and performativity were markers
of the modern girl, travel and mobility were
also. A photograph taken by Homai features
women travelers at the mole station, at the
dockyard located at Ballard pier in Bombay.
Wearing dresses, high-heeled shoes and
hats, we see three women standing next to
their luggage as they clutch at their bags
tightly. One woman holds onto her body
self-consciously. All of them return the gaze
of the photographera woman just like
themselveswith some amount of distrust.
They seem slightly out of place, as if they do
not belong. The women look like they could
be Anglo-Indian, the Anglo Indian woman
being considered the archetypal modern girl
(Ramamurthy in Weinbaum et al 2008: 147173). With the arrival of independence in 1947,
this community was increasingly isolated, as
they were considered outsiders by both the
Indians and the British.
If the station and the dockyard were potentially
dangerous sites for the intermingling of
gender, race and class, the Sir J.J. School of
Art, where Homai Vyarawalla and Rehana
Mogul studied, was a more sanitized
cosmopolitan space that brought middle and
upper class men and women from different
Rehana Mogul and Mani Turner in sculpture class at the J.J. School of the Arts, Bombay, late 1930s.
Courtesy the Homai Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

15

Travelers at the dockyard, Ballard Pier, Bombay, early 1940s.

Courtesy the Homai Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

communities and backgrounds together.

Besides giving them a traditional education in
classical art, the school offered these modern
girls new career options in graphic design and
advertising.
It may be no coincidence that we do not see
modern girls in Homai Vyarawallas work
after 1942. Some feminist historians have
viewed the nationalist movement at this
time as a setback for the womens question
(Kumar 1993: 93-4). While it might be simplistic
to assume that the modern girl disappeared
completely, there is no doubt that a certain
kind of image of a fashionable woman began
to be viewed with suspicion in cinema and
advertising. By the 1940s the modern girl
character in cinema was increasingly seen
as morally suspect. Heroines who aspired
to be modern were often tamed or punished
for transgressive behaviour (Vasudevan in
Andaz 1995: 84). The Anglo-Indian woman
now played the role of the westernized
vamp, and the new woman wearing a sari
was constructed as a moral counter to this
character (Ramamurthy 2008:159). In 1948, an
entire series of Lux toilet soap advertisements
in the tabloid Blitz featured actresses with
their heads covered with a dupatta or a
sari. Of course as we have already seen in
the image of Rehana Mogul in the Bombay
Chronicle, this could be a masquerade as the
modern girl sought to reinvent herself in a
new cultural setting.
We see this subtle transformation in Homai
Vyarawallas own persona as well. Her
relocation to Delhi coincided with other
shifts in her personal life. By 1942 Homai
was married with a child. There were other
pressures around being the only woman
in a mans world. Surrounded by much
greater scrutiny as the only woman press
photographer, Homais survival in a political
arena dominated by men depended upon
a stripping away of a more obvious sexual
presence. She now welcomed the nickname
mummy given to her by one of her
colleagues as it placed her on a pedestal.
She deliberately cultivated a morally correct
persona at work and dressed in a khadi sari.
Of course her sari provided her with a safe
alibi to live a more unconventional outer
life. It enabled Homai to traverse the country
as she photographed high profile political
events. She spent her evenings unescorted
as she photographed social functions at the
Delhi Gymkhana club and various diplomatic
missions. We see how conforming to
nationalist ideals of femininity was integral to
Homai Vyarawallas professional survival as
a press photographer in Delhi.
A student of the JJ School of the Arts, Bombay, early 1940s.
Courtesy the Homai Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

16

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Homai Vyarawalla on a shoot in the Chambal Valley,

Homai Vyarawalla with her Speedgraphix Camera.

1950s. Courtesy the Homai Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi

Courtesy the Homai Vyarawalla Archive / Alkazi Collection of Photography

Collection of Photography

attempted to interrogate some of Homai

Vyarawallas early images, as it reflects on
what may have happened to the women in
them and their quest to be modern.
Sabeena Gadihoke is Associate Professor of Video and
Television Production at the AJK Mass Communication
Research Centre at Jamia University in New Delhi.
She is also an independent documentary filmmaker
and cameraperson. Her book Camera Chronicles
of Homai Vyarawalla (Mapin/Parzor) was published
in 2006. She recently curated a retrospective show
on Homai Vyarawalla for the Alkazi collection of
photography at the National Gallery of Modern Art in
Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore.

REFERENCES
Berger, John, 1972. Ways of Seeing. BBC & Penguin Books, London
Kumar, Radha, 1993. A History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of
Movements for Womens Rights and Feminism in India, 18001990.
Kali for Women, New Delhi

Which leaves us with the question: What

happened to Homais classmates at the School
of Arts? Photographs taken by her in the late
1930s are symbolic of the chances that these
young women may have had before their
onward journey was interrupted by larger
events over which they had little control.
The pictures capture fleeting and carefree
moments of leisure when subversive ideas
are born. Young girls swing from the banyan
trees in abandon as their friends look on in lazy
indulgence. Four young women sit with their
legs in water at a picnic as others sketch on the
banks. In another image, the camera captures a
private reverie as a young girl lies on her back
with her eyes half shut under the open sky.

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

These images represent the might have been

possibilities of their lives. As a certain idea of
the modern girl came under attack, the lives of
these young women may have changed too.
Perhaps some were domesticated by marriage
and the demands of cultural nationalism.
Others may have led subversive inner lives
even as they performed the roles of good girls
(Debashree Mukherjee, 2009).
The modern girl never disappeared
completely, of course. If she appeared
henceforth on the margins of cinema, albeit
in a different garb, we also saw her in
advertisements and occasionally peeping
out of personal photographic albums in the
decades that followed. This photo essay has

Ramamurthy, Preeti. All Consuming Nationalism: The Indian

Modern Girl in the 1920s and 1930s in Weinbaum, Thomas,
Ramamurthy, Poiger, Yue Dong, Barlow (Eds), 2008. The
Modern Girl Around The World: Consumption, Modernity, and
Globalization. The Modern Girl Around the World Group. Duke
University Press. Durham & London
Vasudevan, Ravi S. You cannot live in society and ignore it:
Nationhood and female modernity in Andaz. Social Reform,
Sexuality and the State. Contributions to Indian Sociology Vol 29,
Nos 1& 2, JanDec 1995. Sage Publications India Pvt ltd
Weinbaum, A.E, Thomas, L.M, Ramamurthy, P, Poiger, U.G,
Yue Dong, M & Barlow, T.E (Eds), 2008. See above.
Mukherjee, Mukherjee, Debashree. Good girls, bad girls.
URL http://www.india-seminar.com/2009/598/598_debashree_
mukherjee.htm

17

A S H IMM E RIN G P RA C TI C E : J A P AN E S E LA C Q U E R ART

Bic Tieu
Autumn Sunset Ring, 2011, Bic Tieu. Urushi, gold powder, white gold, black diamonds. Photo: Bic Tieu

n early 2009 I went to Wajima, Japan for

a two-year residency to learn the art of
Japanese lacquer, in particular to study the
Japanese lacquer technique called makie. With
that in mind, I wanted to be consumed by the
beautiful surroundings and the sensibility of
everything Japanese. Wajima glistens on the
Noto peninsula on the west end coast of the
island of Honshu. Not only has the experience
of working with lacquer inspired me,
engaging with the community has given me
insight into Japanese culture. By participating
in traditional festivals, culinary highlights,
and seeing some of the most spectacular
landscape enveloping the island, I now reflect
on my journey and how those experiences
have influenced my practice.

It is the lustrous, metallic appearance and

subtle sculptural surface design of Japanese
lacquer (known as urushi) that first captured
my curiosity. Lacquer is a natural resin which is
exhaustively layered and sanded to produce a
rich, highly lustrous finish. Of the many types
of lacquer techniques, it is makie that brought
me to Japan. Makie was developed between the
9th and 14th centuries in Japan, reaching its
peak during the Edo period (1615-1867).
Makie is a surface painted decorative technique
which involves sophisticated specialised tools
and hand dexterity. It is a time-consuming
process which comprises precision painting
the image with lacquer onto a wooden
substrate using very fine brushes, then
dusting it with gold or silver granules using
a bamboo sieve called a fun tsuzu. The gold
painted picture is then left to cure followed
by delicate polishing, the procedure repeated
until the desired image is formed.
The earliest examples of lacquerware are of
Chinese wooden bowls from the Neolithic
period (around 5000 BCE) with both internal
and external surfaces painted with red
lacquer. A primary function of lacquer was to
waterproof and seal the surface. Because of
lacquers ability to work as a binding agent
this developed into a medium for painting
and further for appliqu and inlay, gradually
lending itself to greater artistic expression.
Through trade routes, lacquer technology
reached neighbouring countries such as
Korea, Japan and the Southeast Asian region.
With time, these regions developed styles
distinctly their own. Lacquer as an artistic
medium has continuously evolved, allowing

me to experiment with a new approach

to surface design combining traditional
techniques with contemporary practices.
My artistic background is in contemporary art
jewellery and object design working primarily
with metals. I am especially influenced by the
sensibility and aesthetics of Asian art and I
often creatively combine that with traditional
art methods and digital technology for new
interpretations of design work. I am interested
in applying various methods such as Japanese
lacquer to create forms and surfaces that
merge a myriad of ideas together.
In my work I often like to explore a
contemporary interpretation of historical
floral themes. The repertoire of flowers based
on the seasons is abundant in the Asian arts.
I often collect these images electronically.

The image is scanned, manipulated and

re-rendered to suit the outcome whether object
or wearable. I create jewellery and objects
as carriers of a history of ideas, particularly
through visual language. My appreciation
for jewellery comes from its associations with
history, status, rituals, ceremony and body
adornment.
The beginning for me started while I was doing
my undergraduate degree when my lecturer
showed me a book titled East Asian Lacquer
(Watt and Ford, 1991). I was enthralled by the
beauty of the craft. It was the lacquer objects
surfaces that intrigued my curiosity. I wanted
to reinterpret the lustrous quality of lacquer
through surface ornamentation on metal and
non-metal surfaces. So began a journey of
investigation which has lasted a decade and
is still ongoing.

Flowery Ring Series, 2012, Bic Tieu. Sterling silver, gold, maki-e and lacquer. Photo: Bic Tieu

18

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Circling the Surface, 2015, Bic Tieu. Urushi, mother of pearl, copper, gold leaf and silk cord. Photo: Bic Tieu

My research continued through to my masters

project where I investigated the materiality
and processes of Vietnamese lacquer applied
to contemporary jewellery and objects. This
resulted in my dissertation The Application of
Vietnamese Lacquer to Small Scale Jewellery and
Object. It was also at this time that I started
to develop a deep appreciation for Japanese
lacquer.
In 2007, with an Australia Council New
Work Grant I was able to undertake a 6 week
residency in Wajima, Japan to learn some
very basic and traditional metal and lacquer
techniques. While I was undertaking my
Masters degree I had established some very
good connections, in particular discovering
Lesley Kehoe and her gallery. This enabled
me to gain entry to study traditional metal
techniques at the Tokoku University of Art
and Design under the guidance of metal
master Toru Kaneko and undertake the
residency with Kitamura Koubou in Wajima.
Because I had established connections with
Kitamura Koubou, I was invited back for
serious study into makie through a Visual
Arts Residency in Wajima. Wajima falls
within the prefecture of Ishikawa on the
Noto peninsula and is known as the centre
of lacquer production. My purpose was to
extend my knowledge and develop skills in
traditional Japanese lacquer, specifically makie
techniques, at a professional artistic level. The
experience of Wajima, its location, energy and
traditions, provided an unforgettable cultural
learning experience. This two-year residency
(2009-2011), which was undertaken with
lacquer master Unryuan Kitamura Tatsuo,
was made possible through The Ian Potter
Cultural Grant, Asialink, Hermanns Imports
Scholarship Grant, and private sponsorship.
The authors Melvin and Betty Jahss succinctly
express the complex beauty of lacquer craft:
Lacquer represents the acme of artistry
aesthetic and decorative design in a colourful
graphic form while craftsmanship is
expressed through the use of an extremely
difficult medium in which to work. (1971)
I resonate strongly with this. Lacquer is
both two and three-dimensional, graphic
and sculptural, and as a maker I admit it is
a difficult medium to work with. Both hand
dexterity and consciousness of the material
used is required, the latter especially given
my severe allergic skin reactions. Further
it involves a lot of time, effort and expense.
The challenges I face when working with this
medium in Australia is getting the urushi to
harden. There is constant experimentation
with curing, temperatures and humidity due

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

to the differences between the Australian

and Asian climate. Unlike paint, lacquer
polymerises best in conditions based on
the right balance of moisture in the air. To
overcome this an artificial environment
is created to try and achieve the right
temperature and humidity.
As a contemporary jewellery, object designer
and maker, my practice resolves around three
dialogues: the language of wearables and
objects, research, and lacquer application. In
having explored lacquer, a very multifaceted
medium, I am interested in creating a textural
response and stimulating ideas through
visual metaphors. The experience of working
in a traditional lacquer studio in Japan has
resulted in producing some fine traditional
lacquerware including some Japanese lacquer
boxes and jewellery pieces which I created
during the two-year residency.
I create metal base work in conjunction with
pieces that use lacquer, for example in my
Flowery Ring series, the top surface area becomes
a platform for the integration of lacquer design
work. This work demonstrates the use of several
technologies to achieve a particular surface,
including hand fabrication, computer aided
design, gold plating and makie techniques. Other
processes I often apply include acid etching the
metal and patination processes. I combine these
techniques through layering these processes
together in the interest of creating a surface
language in small scale work.

studio work. This ongoing association with

makie and metal is about pursuing synergy
between hand skills and material diligence.
Working with traditional and contemporary
techniques and interpretations to create subtle
surface finishes, I hope to continue these
traditional processes with new expressions
in my practice of contemporary jewellery and
object making in Australia.
Currently I am working on a new body of work
for a solo exhibition at Fairfield City Museum
and Gallery to be exhibited in September 2016.
The project will mainly investigate notions
around symbolic offerings, ancestors and
deities. These practices connect my heritage,
family and culture through the representation
of tea and cups, incense and incense holders,
food and bowls. It is the dialogue between
these associated objects and rituals I am
interested in exploring. The body of works
will be created through the visual detailing
of metal surface exploration combined with
traditional Japanese lacquering technique.
Bic Tieu is a Sydney-based designer/maker of
jewellery, wearables and small objects. Bic also
teaches Jewellery and Design at UNSW Art & Design.
See: www.bictieu.com.

REFERENCES
Jahss, B. & Jahss. M. H., 1971. Inro and Other Miniature Forms of
Japanese Lacquer Art, Charles. E. Tuttle Company, Japan.
Watt, J. C. Y & Ford, B., 1991, East Asian Lacquer: The Florence
and Herbert Irving Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.

Makie has been influential to the development

of the jewellery and objects formed in my

19

RAMA W AS A MI G RANT TOO : INT E R V I E W IN G SA V AN H DAR Y V ON G P OOT H ORN

Christine Clark
Savanhdary Vongpoothorn at work in her Canberra studio. Photo: Andrew Sikorski

or the last 25 years, Savanhdary

Vongpoothorn has constantly taken
inspiration from a diverse range of sources.
Her paintings, many employing the artists
signature perforated canvases and textural
paper explorations, speak of various personal
life encounters and intellectual enquiries.
Born in Laos in 1971 and having migrated to
Australia in 1979, Vongpoothorns multiple
cultural experiences have provided rich,
pivotal sources: Lao calligraphy, textiles and
incantations, Buddhist philosophies and
scripture, the Australian bush along with
Indigenous Australian art and a predilection
for music from around the world have all, at
various times, been prominent influences.
Her rhythmic, seemingly meditative works
often layer and weave together these worlds,
presenting a dialogue and seeking harmony
between repetitive elements and abstract form.

Recent travels and encounters have resonated

through Savanhdary Vongpoothorns artistic
and intellectual vocabulary and prompted a
shift in her work. In early 2013, Vongpoothorn
was one of 10 Australian participants in a 10
day artists retreat in Jaipur, India (an initiative
of the Australia India Institute, University of
Melbourne). The intense engagement with
the work of some of Indias most interesting
artists inspired her to explore further what she
already knew of the historical intersections
and cross-fertilisations between Lao and
Indian culture. In particular, she was struck by
correspondences between spiritual narratives
and their visual representations. Exposure to
the practices of some of the Indian artists also
sparked a fascination with the traditions and
techniques of Rajasthani miniature painting.
In 2014 she was based in Hoi An in central
Vietnam for eight months and also conducted
visual research in Ban Meuang Kang, Laos,
and Pondicherry, India where she undertook
an Australia Council residency to learn
miniature painting techniques with BritishIndian artist Desmond Lazaro.
I spoke to Savanhdary Vongpoothorn
about her recent travels, the influence these
encounters have had on her work and how the
conflicting binaries of the elation of discovery
and profound loss are ever-present in her
work and are manifest in her new series.
CC: You have recently uncovered an important
and personal connection to the Rama Jataka,

20

the local Lao narrative that corresponds to the

Ramayana.
SV: During the middle ages, my birthplace
Champassak, in Southern Laos, was the
centre of an Indianised kingdom under
Khmer rule. The remnants of this kingdom
are still found in the pre-Angkorian Khmer
temple of Vat Phu, which sits just above my
mothers village Ban Meuang Kang, located
along the west bank of the Mekong River, and
is part of the ancient city. This was a sacred
city where the worship of Shiva in the form
of the Linga flourished, and the Lao Hinayana
Buddhist rituals carried out there today still
reveal clear Brahmanical strains. My research
unearthed a fascinating, almost forgotten,
body of scholarship on the Rama Jataka, the
Lao telling of the Ramayana. The Rama Jataka
re-imagines the saga, taking place along the
Mekong River rather than the Ganga, and
tells us as much about Lao culture in the 14th
century as it does about Rama and Sita.
Following up on what I knew about the
historical cultural connection between
India and Laos through the Ramayana, I
discovered the amazing fact that an Indian
scholar, Sachchidanand Sahai, worked on
translating the Lao versions of this epic. In
1996 he published in English The Phra Lak
Phra Lam/Rama Jataka in two volumes, based
on palm leaf manuscripts in Vientiane. The

retelling of the actual Hindu epic, the Valmiki

version, occupies only a small portion of the
Rama Jataka, while the rest dwells more on
Lao Buddhist customs, birth and marriage
rites, love poems and explaining the symbolic
meanings of local flora and fauna.
CC: Could you expand further on how this
epic has been localised in Lao culture?
SV: Perhaps the most exciting aspect of
localising the Ramayana in Laos is the resituating of the epics core narrative the
journeys of Rama and his brother Laksmana
along the axis of the Mekong River from
Vientiane in the north to Cambodia in the
south. In Laos the Rama Jataka is a sacred text,
and is read to this day by Buddhist monks
during Buddhist lent at temples along the
Mekong River, the imaginary scene of these
adventures.
CC: You travelled to Laos last year to learn
more about the sacred geography imagined in
the Rama Jataka. What did you learn?
SV: I spent a few days in the temple
library, studying ancient scripts. In the
village I also recorded the recollections and
understandings that family members, of my
mothers generation, have of the Rama Jataka.
They all grew up with this literature as part of
the family history, since my great-grandfather

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Rama on the Mekong, 2015, Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, acrylic on perforated canvas, 180cmx300cm. Courtesy Martin Browne Contemporary. Photo: Andrew Sikorski

was a royal Pundit who scribed the Rama

Jataka onto palm leaf manuscripts. The
family has a small number of such heirlooms,
although most were lost or destroyed during
the confusion of the war. Additionally, I was
exploring the Mekong River as a place of
spiritual crossing marked by rituals, shrines,
temples and other practices, structures and
objects.
CC: In your new works you employ
fragments of texts and images from the
Rama Jataka, articulations from your recent
findings, as well as incorporating materials
and techniques from India and Vietnam
In Pondicherry I undertook a 10 day intensive
course with Desmond Lazaro. I was eager
to learn the core techniques and geometric
principles of the miniature craft and in
my current project I use and extend these
methods. Working with natural pigments
(materials emblematic to miniature tradition)
has already proven significant in pushing the
boundaries of my painting practice.

Liberation Front during the American War.

Nowadays he still works with bamboo, but in
a much more peaceful and meditative mode.
I spent many days with Uncle Muoi talking
about poetry and learning the intricate woven
patterns he uses to make platters, fish traps
and other beautiful bamboo objects. I have
taken these techniques and applied them
when weaving strips of paper, including
Sanganeer paper from Jaipur and mulberry
bark paper form northern Vietnam.
The multiple piece Rama was a Migrant, 2015,
a work in progress, comprises several woven
strips of Vietnamese paper, onto which is
drawn an image of the Mekong River with
the Naga. Not only is the Mekong River the
core feature of the routes travelled by Rama
and Laksmana from the north to the south in
the Rama Jataka, the River is also a symbol of
labour migration in contemporary mainland
South East Asia.
CC: Loss weighs heavily in your experience of
travel and is evoked in your new series.

Lao culture found in the Rama Jataka music,

courting and traditional weaving, for instance
is no longer being practiced today in my
mothers village. While there, it occurred to
me that we are dealing with loss daily, from
culture to nature, in particular the erosion
of the road along the banks of the Mekong
River, pollution of the river, depletion of fish
stocks and depopulation as young men move
to Thailand.
Yet, while my personal experience in my
mothers village is of loss, through paint I
am able to transcend this experience. My
time with Uncle Muoi made me reflect on my
own history. I found a kindred spirit in Uncle
Muoi, and I believe we bonded as people
whose lives have both been fragmented by
war. Eight months of research brought up
many questions of identity and personal
history. In our different ways, we each relate
to the past as a process of recovery of things
lost, and see our own personal histories as
things constantly rewritten.
Christine Clark is Manager, Exhibitions at the

CC: And in Vietnam?

SV: Over the eight months in Hoi An I had the
opportunity to engage with a number of local
artists and artisans. My deepest relationship
was with charismatic Uncle Muoi, a locally
renowned bamboo craftsman. Uncle Muoi
is regarded as a bona fide war hero who
designed bamboo man-traps for the National

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

The conversation between tradition and

the contemporary has always been part
of my practice. In my recent paintings, for
example Rama on the Mekong, 2015, I am using
fragments and random text from the Rama
Jataka in a painterly weave to suggest ideas of
the fragments inherent in personal histories. I
am sensitive to the fragments as it is symbolic
of loss. What was once a part of the richness of

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Over the past 20

years, her curatorial projects and writing has focused
on Southeast and South Asian and Australian-Asian
contemporary art.

21

H AIR J E W E LL E R Y O F MOL U C C AN W OM E N O F T H E D U T C H E AST INDI E S

Marianne Hulsbosch
Upper-class bridal couple, Ambon, 1935. Image courtesy of M. Hulsbosch

he spectacular array of traditional and

modern jewellery items throughout
Asias diverse continent bears testimony to
the inventiveness, skill and creativity of its
makers. These items of material culture are also
a potent visual tool that continuously defines
the individual. Jewellery not only offers the
opportunity to display allegiance to an ethnic
group, more importantly it is a marker that
announces status, political affiliation, sociocultural definition and economic position,
providing a window through which to
explore a specific culture. Items of dress and
adornment are commodities that neatly fuse
past and present position in society and
by making and using jewellery and other
items of body decoration, people not only
determine their visual presence, they also
assure a continuation of their unique material
cultural artefacts (Hulsbosch 2009).

Following the arrival of Europeans in Southeast

Asia in the 15th century, successive colonial
governments, encouraged by religious fervour,
targeted dress and personal adornment of
the local people. In fact they went as far as
initiating sumptuary laws prescribing what
could, and could not, be worn (Taylor 1983).
Of course it wasnt only colonial governments
that dictated dress and adornment; historically
local governments were, and still can be,
prescriptive in defining dress codes. For
example, for the wedding on 11 June this year of
Gibran Rakabuming, eldest son of Indonesian
president Joko Widodo, batik shirts were
distributed to some 300+ reporters covering
the event. As event coordinator Quirino Edhi
stated: The batik shirt is to be worn during
the reception so our journalist friends can look
good. (www.globalindonesianvoices.com)
Such imposed sumptuary requirements have
become an important building block in the
development of national identity, such as
batik shirts in Indonesia (initially propagated
by President Soeharto) or the barong tagalog
in the Philippines promoted by President
Marcos. However, in what has been labelled
the politics of dress and adornment it is
clear that people often respond in a very
creative and sometimes rebellious manner
to mandatory sumptuous laws and its the
very act of repression that may stimulate and
nurture ethnic identity (Foucault 1970).
Of course no outfit is complete without its
corresponding items of jewellery and other

22

objects of personal adornment. Jewellery worn

in the Moluccan Islands of Indonesia during
Dutch colonial times, for example, was a
means of articulating Amboneseness, because
it allowed women to transcribe traditional,
cultural meaning to specific decorations such
as headdresses and other items of jewellery
worn on the head (Hulsbosch 2014).
The 19th century saw the birth of distinct
methods of womens hair styling and
embellishment. Particular Ambonese hairstyles
and their associated hair jewellery began to
assume fetish-like significance because of
their value as status markers. Styling rules

were rigidly maintained through social

expectation to uphold personal status (personal
communication, A.M. Matitaputty 2001).
Ambonese women used their hair jewellery
as an intrinsic part of sexual discourse. The
back of the head was decorated heavily with
an assortment of jewellery, and it was her back
that was scrutinised by young unmarried men,
as they were not allowed to look young virgins
directly in the eye. A womans back and
by extension the back of her head asserted
sexual availability, because women were free
to display their marital status by their hair
jewellery in particular (Hulsbosch 2014).

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Upper-class bridal hairdo and hair jewellery,

Ambonese, 2001. Image courtesy of M. Hulsbosch

Christian Ambonese wedding attire was

considered the epitome of fashion and reached
its zenith in the 1920s and 30s. It was during
a wedding celebration that the magnificent
spectacle of hair jewellery was on display.
Meticulous hair styling was an important
part of the ritual involved in preparing the
bride and it was through the hairstyle that
one could ascertain her rank. The number of
hairpins worn inferred social status (eight
for upper, six for middle and two for lower
class women), whilst the precious materials
used in the hair ornaments implied economic
wealth. Wedding clothes were often borrowed
or leased, but hair ornaments were family
heirloom pieces of the brides clan and
constituted an important part of her dowry.
The brides hair was brushed severely back
from the face and at the centre back divided
into two ponytails. These tails were tightly
coiled, intertwined and pinned down into a
ducktail bun, wrapped in a wreath and held in
place by a large silver or gold comb. The neck
hair was separated and combed up and over
the base of each bun in two flat locks and then
twisted together to resemble a ducks tail. No
wisps of hair could fall loose, so the hair was
glued with a mixture of coconut milk and the
juice of the leaf of a waringin tree. The lock
in front of the ear was turned into a J-shape
facing the earlobe and also gelled down.
To keep hair out of the face, the forehead was
shaved back except for some wisps that were
curled into small locks and pasted down.
A plaited strip of bamboo called gigi anjing
(dogs teeth) was tied around the forehead
to accentuate the face and define the hairline.
Some upper class women secured their hair
locks with Indian forehead jewellery; these
consisted of chains of precious metals such
as gold or silver with inlay of gemstones,
pearls or shell. The chains were brought to
the Moluccan islands by Indian merchants.
During the latter half of the 19th century
the custom of forehead shaving faded and
the locks and forehead jewellery gave way
to a new gigi anjing made of black velvet ricrac ribbon.
As well as the regular set of hairpins,
additional gold or silver flower-shaped
quivering hairpins fanned out from the sides
of the double bun, worn only by brides. A tight
metal coil of about 7cm in length was inserted
between the hairpin and the metal flower. All
of these pins bar one, were placed in a circle
around the outside hair bun. Again, social
standing of the bride prescribed the material
and number of pins worn: 12 gold quivering
pins for upper class women; 10 silver ones for

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

middle class brides and four for lower class

women. The last quivering pin, placed in the
centre of the bun, was much larger and more
decorative than the others.
These whimsical flower like pins, heavily
decorated with diamantes and pearls, swayed
on the coil with the slightest movement of the
head. They radiated from the brides face and
illuminated it when light refracted from their
diamantes and gold sparkles. A restrained
physical posture and a straight back with
head held high were seen as fundamental in
showcasing Ambonese morals and ideals. A
right and proper bride was at pains to reduce
the movement of these pins to an absolute
minimum, because the slightest movement
of quivering hairpins indicated corruption or
flaw of moral character.
However when a gust of wind or draught
moved the quivering hairpins it was welcomed
as a good omen. It was considered a spiritual
affirmation of the moral high standing of the
bride and confirmed the appropriateness of
the union of the two clans through marriage
(personal communication, T. Patty 2001).

obvious than in the styling and decorating

of womens hair as the women bestowed
cultural significance and meaning onto hair
grooming practices and by carefully selecting,
combining and placing hair jewellery.

Ambonese weddings became a means of

infusing traditional principles with Christian
views of virginality. This was demonstrated
in the course of wedding rituals where ethnic
beliefs were graphically displayed with two
specific practices involving hair jewellery.

Dr Marianne Hulsbosch is an honorary senior lecturer

Firstly, the custom of physically releasing a

family member to join another clan played
out in the brides compound. After the bride
completed the dressing and grooming ritual,
her mother placed the last pin in the set of
quivering hairpins in the centre of the bun.
This signified the acceptance of the mother in
releasing her daughter to the grooms clan and
symbolised the approval by the brides clan of
the grooms bridewealth as compensation for
the loss of her potential earnings and costs
incurred in raising her.

REFERENCES

The second ritual occurred when the newly

married couple left the church and the
mother of the bride placed a pin just below
the centre of the hair bun. This pin referred
to the Immaculate Conception by publicly
declaring the virginal state of the bride
(van Hovell 1875). It was richly decorated
with gold and red ribbons and resembled a
cockade. The ribbons formed a rosette around
the flower head of the pin whilst the ends of
the ribbon hung free.

at the University of Sydney. Her research interest is

in visual culture and sartorial expression and she
publishes widely. In addition she continues to play
with textiles incorporating a wide range of processes,
materials and contextual sites.

http://www.globalindonesianvoices.com/20956/extra-tightsecurity-for-wedding-of-president-jokowis-son-gibran-rakabuming/
Hulsbosch, M., 2009. Fluttering Like Flowers in a Summer Breeze
in M. Hulsbosch (ed), Asian Material Culture (pp. 163 - 190).
Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam
Hulsbosch, M., 2014. Pointy Shoes and Pith Helmets: Dress and
Identity Construction in Ambon from 1850 to 1942. Brill, Leiden
and Boston
Hulsbosch, M., 2006b. Of Brutes and Brides: Displaying Distinct
Ethnic Identity in a Colonial Context [Electronic Version]. 16th
Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia;
Asia Reconstructed: from Critiques of Development to Postcolonial
Studies from http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/ASAA/
biennial-conference/2006/Hulsbosch-Marianne-ASAA2006.pdf.
Taylor, J. G., 1983. The Social World of Batavia; European and
Eurasian in Dutch Asia. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.
van Hovell, B. G. W. W.,1875. Ambon; en meer bepaaldelijk De
Oeliassers. Blusee en Van Braam, Dordrecht.

Ambonese women drew upon their

ethnicity to create powerful symbols of
cultural comment. Nowhere was this more

23

W A Y S O F R E M E M B E RIN G - G R E E N ISLAND AND S H A W NA Y AN G R Y AN

Mark Harrison

Shawna Yang Ryans first novel, Water Ghosts

(2009), was set in the late 1920s in the town of
Locke, built by Chinese settlers not far from
Sacramento. In Water Ghosts, Ryan turns the
ruptures of migration and the Exclusion Act of
1924 into a miasmic world filled with longing
and desire. Because of its Chinese social and
cultural themes, Ryans earlier work has
seen her situated in the categories of AsianAmerican and Chinese-American literature.
Literary scholar Wei Ming Dariotis describes
her as one of a new generation of ChineseAmerican writers exploring new themes and
genres in the literary terrain opened up by
celebrated Chinese-American writers like
Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston.

Green Island
Shawna Yang Ryan
Knopf, February 2016
RRP: USD19.86 hardcover

Just off the south west coast of Taiwan, facing

the Pacific Ocean, is the small atoll of Green
Island. Over the four decades of Taiwans
authoritarian rule from the 1940s to the 1980s,
it was the location for a cluster of notorious
prison camps that housed Taiwanese political
prisoners. Thousands of people who opposed
the government of Chiang Kai-shek and the
Chinese Nationalists (Kuomingtang or KMT)
spent years in isolated imprisonment and an
unknown number died there.
Green Island (2016) is the title of a new novel by
the Taiwanese-American author Shawna Yang
Ryan. It tells a story of Taiwan that is littleappreciated in the English-speaking world,
through the experiences of a family whose life
is defined by authoritarianism.
Shawna Yang Ryan is from Sacramento,
California and teaches creative writing at
the University of Hawaii. This year she won
the Elliot Cades Award for Literature for
emerging writers. She is steeped in the west
coast literary culture of the Bay Area and
her work is championed by figures such as
the doyen of the San Francisco literary scene
Thomas Farber and the celebrated beat poet
Gary Snyder.

24

However, Ryans mother is from Taiwan

and Ryan calls herself Taiwanese-American.
She has described learning about Taiwan
in personal terms, by becoming close to her
extended Taiwanese family in the central
city of Taichung. This relationship helped
her better appreciate her own childhood and
the challenges her mother faced in the 1970s
in translating Taiwanese cultural life into a
Californian setting through the rituals and
rhythms of family life.
Ryan lived in Taiwan on a Fullbright
scholarship as an American student, and
described encountering Taiwans history of
oppression and resistance there as a political
awakening. She is active in the TaiwaneseAmerican community and once politely but
pointedly admonished celebrated Taiwanese
film director Ang Lee at a public forum
in Berkeley on his failure to tell a fully
Taiwanese story in his filmic oeuvre. It is as
a novelist writing her second novel that Ryan
has chosen to tell her own Taiwanese story.
Green Island begins with the birth of a girl in
Taipei on February 28 1947, the day of the
start of the island-wide uprising known as
2-28 that has defined Taiwanese politics and
society ever since. Shortly after, her father, a
Japanese-educated doctor, is arrested by the
authorities and becomes one of the thousands
who disappeared in the White Terror, when
he is interred on Green Island. The family
is forced to remake a quotidian Taiwanese
family life around the despair wrought by his
absence. But after 10 years of imprisonment
he suddenly returns, meeting his daughter as
a young child for the first time, and creating a
new and different kind of silence at the centre

of the family. In a society shaped by fear as

a policy of authoritarian rule, the family is
reunited but more deeply fractured than ever
by suffering and suspicions that cannot be
uttered.
Shawna Yang Ryan focusses on the vivid
details of daily life in Taiwan as the hopes of
her characters are realised and compromised
by Taiwans social and political travails. As a
writer, Ryan is particularly interested in the
senses and on the tangibility of experiences,
with her distinctive style bringing an intense
tactility to the narrative. This dimension of
Ryans work could be characterised as explicitly
feminist. Green Island is a womans story that
is attentive to the way women must negotiate
power in their relationships and through their
bodies in the everyday. More broadly, through
the story of modern Taiwan, the book explores
the choices people make, and are forced to
make, in their political and personal lives and
the consequences of those choices.
Later in Green Island, the daughter marries
and emigrates to the United States, but
the memories of the traumas visited upon
her family in Taiwan haunt the present. In
California in the 1970s, where the instruments
of Taiwans KMT government can still
reach, she is entangled by her husbands
participation in the exile Taiwanese democracy
movement, with disastrous consequences.
The novel concludes in the 2000s, long after
Taiwans transition to democracy but during
the public health panic of the SARS epidemic.
In a resolution that might be read as cautious
optimism, Ryan shows people reaching
towards resignation, accommodation and
understanding across the generations in their
relationships.
As an act of story-telling, Green Island is
imbued with a sense of urgency that comes
from Ryans consciousness of the limited
understanding of the history of Taiwan in the
English-speaking world. And it is the political
transformation of Taiwan itself that has made
possible Ryans telling of it.
Taiwan had been gradually incorporated into
the Qing empire from the 18th century until
the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 ceded Taiwan
to Japan. For 50 years the Taiwanese benefited
from Japanese imperial modernisation and
suffered under imperial militarism. In 1911,
the Chinese Nationalists overthrew the Qing

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Shawna Yang Ryan Anna Wu Photography

dynasty on mainland China and founded the

Republic of China. The Taiwanese fought in
the Japanese imperial army in WWII, but with
Japans defeat in 1945 it was to the Republic
of China, led by Chiang Kai-shek, that Taiwan
was ceded. On 2-28, the Taiwanese rose up
against Chinese Nationalist rule. The uprising
was crushed with extraordinary brutality,
with tens of thousands killed, thousands
more imprisoned or fleeing into exile in
Japan and the US. In 1949, defeated by the
Chinese Communists, the KMT relocated the
national government of the Republic of China
to Taiwan, leading more than one million
refugees to join a hostile population of five
million Taiwanese.
Taiwan became a developmentalist state
governed under martial law from 1949 to 1987.
After decades of both political violence and
rapid economic development, Taiwan began
its transition to democracy in the late 1980s,
by which time the majority of the international
community had renounced diplomatic
recognition of the Republic of China.
In the martial law period, exiled Taiwanese
activists in the US campaigned for
democracy, and also for Taiwanese national
self-determination.. In opposing the KMT
government, Taiwanese activists were
sometimes stridently anti-Chinese. The
peak of anti-government activism overseas
occurred when Wen-shiung Huang, who was
affiliated with the World United Formosans
for Independence, attempted to assassinate
Taiwans Vice-premier Chiang Ching-kuo,
son of Chiang Kai-shek, in New York in 1970.
With democratisation in Taiwan and the rise
of the Peoples Republic of China threatening
Taiwans autonomy, an inclusive Taiwanese
national identity politics became mainstream
on Taiwan. The KMT now stands in
competitive elections like any other political
party against its main rival, the Democratic
Progressive Party.
For overseas Taiwanese, the achievement
of democratisation has meant that exile
Taiwanese anti-government activism lost
much of its political, cultural and moral
purpose. But for a second and third generation
born in the US with Taiwanese family histories
like Shawna Yang Ryan, far from diminishing
its salience, this has opened identification with
Taiwan to new kinds of political and cultural
encounters. It is what the Deleuzian social
theorist Eugene Holland calls a doublebecoming in which the meaning of a place
does not merely change, from dictatorship to
democracy in the case of Taiwan, but changes
the scope of what it is possible for it to mean.

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

In the US especially, Taiwanese identity has

engaged with the rise of identity politics. By
being able to let go of its anti-authoritarian
and hard anti-ROC government activism,
Taiwanese identity in the US has been opened
to the questions of subjectivity and cultural
representation. Hyphenated, diaspora, third
culture and other terms are now available to
people who identify with Taiwan to explore
their subjective plural identities as both
Americans and Taiwanese in their political
and cultural lives.
Shawna Yang Ryan is herself part of the
story of Taiwan through her familys history
of migration. She has written and spoken
about the opportunities for TaiwaneseAmericans to recognise how their experiences
growing up in the US have been shaped by
the distinctiveness of Taiwanese social and
cultural life. As a writer, these opportunities
include speaking back to Taiwans history in
her own artistic voice. She has created her
own Taiwan story using the exacting literary
discipline of the novel, writing with force,

compassion and the higher truth available to

the novelist about the violence wrought on
individual lives in Taiwans modern political
history, as well as with a wary optimism about
acknowledging and reconciling with those
truths in a democratic Taiwan.
In Ryans practice as an artist writing in
English, Taiwan becomes the source of stories
through which she marks out a place for
herself as a contemporary American novelist.
But as a writer who identifies with her own
Taiwanese experience through her politics
and her family history, she also shows the
place of her work in Taiwans political and
cultural history.
Dr Mark Harrison is Senior Lecturer in Chinese
Studies at the University of Tasmania. He is the author
of Legitimacy, Meaning and Knowledge in the Making
of Taiwanese Identity, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

25

M E LATI S U R Y ODARMO : P E R F ORMAN C E AS J O U RN E Y

Yeehwan Yeoh
Melati Suryodarmo. Photo courtesy of the artist.

n September 2015, Indonesian artist

Melati Suryodarmo (b.1969) premiered
a new durational performance piece 24,901
Miles at the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide,
which she will reprise at the Asia Pacific
Triennial (APT8) in Queensland this year.
Referencing the latitudinal distance around
the earth, 24,901 Miles explores the idea of the
human journey, and the toil for survival that
this can involve (Davies 2015).

For 10 hours over two days, the artist

negotiated the size and weight of a mattress
with her body on a gallery floor covered with
sand. Audiences watched Suryodarmo lie
under and on the mattress, lug it around and
caress it. Like most of Suryodarmos work,
there is no narrative, nor does the work reach
any defined ending or climax connoting what
Suryodarmo terms a philosophy of doing
(interview with the artist, September 2015). For
audiences used to theatrical conventions, the
performance could be rather inaccessible.
Performance art distinguished itself as a
genre in the 1970s through radical initiations
by the likes of Marina Abramovi, Joseph
Beuys, Tehching Hsieh, Gilbert and George,
Carolee Schneeman, and Joan Jonas. They
used strategies that engaged with ritual
and absurdity, and importantly, time-based
physical and mental endurance. The master of
performance art, Tehching Hsieh, undertook
durational work which spanned approximately
a year at a time, including a year spent in a
prison like cage structure (Abramovi, as cited
by Xuan Mai Ardia, 2015).
Marina Abramovi, under whom Suryodarmo
studied in Berlin between 2000 and 2001, was
also renowned for testing her physical and
mental limits. Deeply influenced by the feminist
and left-wing movements of the period, she saw
an opportunity in performance art to critique
the state and patriarchal discourses in art.
The legacy of 70s performance art carries on
in Suryodarmos work through the use of
durational work, language of absurdity and
political awareness. In lieu of provocation and
anarchism however, the artist uses the subtle
vocabulary of metaphor and draws primarily
on autobiographical experiences to conceive
her work, asserting that the work would be
meaningless if it did not come from her body
memory: Talking about politics, society
or psychology makes no sense to me if the

26

nerves are not able to digest the information.

(Suryodarmo website 2013)
Suryodarmos intensely physical Im a ghost
at my own house (2012) (Collection of the
NGA, Canberra) performed at Lawangwangi
Foundation in Bandung, Indonesia, finds the
artist crushing and grinding charcoal with a
rolling pin, for 12 hours continuously. Through
its duration, she becomes increasingly
smudged by black coal as well as fatigued by
the physical toll of the undertaking.
In this work Suryodarmo has created a
striking imagery that could be identified
with the disenfranchisement resulting from
the regions labour and gender politics.
According to Suryodarmo, the background
for Im a ghost at my own house and 24,901
Miles, is her experience of living in Germany
from 1994, which she describes as emotionally
tumultuous. There, Suryodarmo struggled
with
cultural
displacement,
marital
breakdown, and life as a working single
parent. Whilst the earlier work draws on the
theme of alienation, the new piece builds on
ideas around shelter and self-protection.
Though difficult, the years in Germany
appear to have cemented Suryodarmos
calling as an artist by providing her with
the basis for many of her conceptual ideas.
It was also there that she by chance met the
legendary Japanese Butoh dancer Anzu
Furukawa under whom she later trained at
Berlins Hochschule fr Bildende Knste
(HBK). Suryodarmos philosophical approach
to her practice continues to be informed by
Furukawa and Abramovi, particularly in its
mysticism and psychology.
Like Abramovi, Suryodarmo subscribes to
the notion that performance art, particularly
through the acts of physical and mental
endurance, can promise a kind of enlightened
realisation. In researching her piece Al Lino
(various performances, 2003-07), Suryodarmo
visited the Bissu communities in South
Sulawesi, seeking to tap into the psychic
potential of their shamanistic practices. Al Lino
is a durational work involving Suryodarmo
standing on a plinth at an angle prompted by
the opposing force of a 4m long pole rested
into her solar plexus. Suryodarmo recounts
how the focus is just to breathe and reach the
emptiness in (her) mind.
(Suryodarmo website 2013)

Curator Emanuela Nobile Mino describes

Suryodarmos aesthetic as a poetic of
overcoming that is related to the concept of
going ahead, improving self-potentialities by
experiencing the effective risk of climbing over
the limits, in order to conquer a real confidence
with the body and a deeper consciousness of
the mind aptitudes. (Mino 2006). Further,
the inspirational in Suryodarmos work is in
the way it elucidates the potential of human
endeavour, transforming banality into
triumph through endurance.
Yeehwan Yeoh is the Program and Business Manager
at Critical Path, a research centre for dance and
choreography in NSW. She wishes to thank Critical
Path for sponsoring her travel to the OzAsia Festival
2015, Adelaide and to Bob and Gill Hogarth for
accommodating her stay.

REFERENCES
Ardia, C. A. Xuan Mai, Tehching Hsieh: When Life Becomes a
Performance. Accessed 12 September 2015: http://theculturetrip.
com/north-america/usa/new-york/articles/tehching-hsieh-whenlife-becomes-a-performance/
Davies, C., 2015. Melati Suryodarmo, 24,901 Miles, exhibition
notes, OzAsia Festival 2015.
Melati Suryodarmo, website, last updated 2013, accessed 10
September 2015: http://www.melatisuryodarmo.com/about.html
Mino, E.N., 2006. Melatis Promising Challenges, accessed 8
September 2015: http://www.melatisuryodarmo.com

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

B OO K R E V I E W : A P E R A N A K A N C O O K B O O K F R O M E A S T J A V A
John Millbank

and reflections, and with numerous evocative

contemporary and historical photographs,
beautifully reproduced. The 80-odd recipes all
come from members of her family, especially
her mothers handwritten cookbook. They
reflect the complex origins of the Peranakans.
As Siu Ling writes in her preface, traditional
cooking methods held, even as dishes from
the outside were introduced. More often than
not these dishes from the outside world were
adapted to Peranakan tastes.

Culture, Cuisine, Cooking. An East Javan

Peranakan Memoir
Paul Freedman and Koo Siu Ling,
Lecturis, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2015
RRP AUD99.95; 550 pages, hardcover.
Available locally from Asia Bookroom

Why a review in an art journal of a book of

recipes? The books title gives the answer,
for although the bulk of the book consists
of recipes from Koo Siu Lings family, its
central subject is the part played by food
and its preparation in the life and culture of
the East Javanese Peranakans. The recipes
themselves are bookended by a substantial
essay by the Yale historian Paul Freedman
and in the last section of the book, a useful
illustrated glossary of spices and herbs, and a
photographic guide to cooking methods.
Freedmans essay traverses the history of
Chinese interaction with and settlement in
Indonesia in general, and in particular the
Chinese-Indonesian community of Malang in
East Java where Siu Ling grew up in the 20th
century. He relates how the Peranakans can
trace their origin back over a millennium of
seaborne trade over routes stretching from the
Persian Gulf and East Africa in the West to China
in the East, in which ports in Sumatra, Java and
Malaya were vital fulcrums. Chinese merchants
and workers, overwhelmingly male, settled in
these ports, marrying local women to establish
families and form distinctive communities
within the wider society. In Indonesia, an
accommodation evolved between the Dutch
administration and Chinese communities which
provided commercial infrastructure, expertise
and networks.
From this springboard, the recipes follow,
interspersed with Siu Lings reminiscences

The cover of the book features the Malang

noodle dish cwie mie, apparently traceable
to the early Javanese Kingdom of Majapahit
(1293-1478) and so revered in Malang that
locals visiting relatives take a container of
the frozen sauce with them in their suitcase.
The classic Sumatran beef rendang and the
fiery beef stew daging bumbu rujak from Java
have been incorporated into the Peranakan
cuisine, the latter being traditionally served
in Chinese homes at the ancestral altar on the
15th day of the Chinese New Year.
But the Peranakan culinary repertoire also
includes many Chinese dishes, some now
incorporated
into
the
popular
Indonesian
repertoire to the extent
they are feature in street
stalls all over the country.
Nasi
goreng,
almost
identical to Cantonese fried
rice, is synonymous with
Indonesia in restaurants
outside the country. Stir
fried vegetables appear in
Indonesia as the vegetable
stir-fry capcai or tjap tjhay
(both spellings used in the
book). Spring rolls and
wonton also appear, but
adapted to local tastes:
spring rolls are wrapped in
pre-cooked rice pancakes,
rather than being deepfried; wonton are often
served fried with a hot
dipping sauce as well as
boiled in soup.

the 18th century, is a plain vanilla cake cut

into slices and dried into biscuits. Now
unobtainable in the Netherlands they are
still popular in Indonesia. By contrast, fried
bananas, pisang goreng, were looked down on
as rather common in upper-class Indonesia
but taken up with enthusiasm by the Dutch
colonists who added them to their national
institution, the rijstaffel.
So the book through these recipes is a personal
testimony to the role of women in maintaining
and handing down cultural traditions through
the preparation and serving of food, and the
social cohesion this engenders. The recipes are
clear and easy to follow: I have tested several
myself and managed to produce credible
results.
One caveat: the book is entirely tri-lingual,
written in English, Indonesian and Dutch,
appropriate given the complex social history
it documents, but making the book quite
bulky.
John Millbank is a private scholar and an enthusiastic
amateur cook.

Dutch dishes have also

been taken up, especially
sweet dishes. Columbine
cake
(klemben) known
in the Netherlands from
The family kitchen. Photo: Iwan Baan

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

27

R E C E NT TAASA A C TI V ITI E S

TAASA IN SYDNEY
TAASA preview of the Mossgreen
Peter Elliott collection auction
28 August 2015
A large group of TAASA members attended a
private viewing of the renowned Peter Elliott
collection that was to be auctioned at the Byron
Kennedy Hall on the last weekend of August.
Professor Elizabeth ElliottAM Professor in
Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of
Sydney gave a moving talk about her memories
of her fathers collecting passion and his weekend
forays to numerous dealers and galleries in
search of something else interesting to add to
his collection. Then TAASA members wandered
at will around the showcases of Asian arts that
would find homes the following weekend.
This event was thoroughly enjoyed by those
present and we are very grateful to Dt John
Yu and to Mossgreen who so generously
afforded us this opportunity.
Gill Green
TAASA TEXTILE STUDY GROUP,
SYDNEY
Bound by Tradition: the evolution of
womens kimono and rise to prominence
of the obi, Nara period to the present
11August 2015
Our visiting speaker from Singapore, Fiona
Cole, kept members spellbound as she

once again provided another informative

presentation - this time the development
of obi (sash) in Japanese dress. During
the 8th c Nara period, court robes were
influenced by Chinese styles, developing
a uniquely Japanese style over succeeding
centuries as the obi became more prominent.
In the early Edo period, brocade- type kimono
with attached sleeves with a narrower obi
was required but by the later Edo, more
flexible kimono weaves allowed wider obi
using additional ties to hold the knot. Wider
obi balanced increasing sleeve lengths.
Gradually, the obi knot became more
elaborate and began to be tied at the back of
the wearer rather than at the front or side.
The design and colours of a kimono and obi
had to take into consideration the time, place
and season it was to be worn. Material and
design were also important although as
Fiona noted, the kimono and the obi were not
intended to be too matchy, matchy which to
our eyes may appear a little jarring.
Today, the kimono is most popularly worn
for weddings, Coming of Age Day and
traditional events like the tea ceremony.
Young, unmarried girls wear bolder obi than
older, married women. It was interesting to
observe that contemporary young women
have adopted a style known as Hime using
Western dress accessories such as handbags
and hats paired with the kimono and obi
helping to keep Japanese traditions alive.
Having lived in Japan over an 8 year period

Fiona attended kitsuke or dressing classes

and skilfully demonstrated how to tie an obi
in a single taiko knot on a mannequin. Other
charming obi knot names are the clams
mouth and the plump sparrow. If anyone
thought dressing in traditional Japanese
costume is something easily done, those
thoughts were quickly dispelled. One marvels
at how Japanese women in the past could
dress themselves unaided. Today, for special
occasions it is necessary to hire a helper.
Margaret White

TAASA H AS A N E W W E B SIT E
The start of December marks a long awaited event the launch of
TAASAs new website.
Designed by TAASA Reviews graphic designer, Ingo Voss of
VossDesign and developed by Tom MacKean of MacKean
Solutions, we hope you will find the site attractive, informative
and easy to use.
The main benefits of TAASAs new website are:
All our current events are clearly presented.
You can click through to get the details for each event, to book
for the event and pay directly by credit card or Paypal account.
Electronic funds transfer (EFT) into TAASAs account remains
an option, and is appreciated by TAASA.
As a member you can log in with your own password and
renew your membership online each year as well as change your
personal details as required. You will be sent your individual
password by email.

28

Non-members can join TAASA online, book and pay for events.
The TAASA Review will now be available electronically, with
soft copies of issues back to 2006 available. Only members can
access electronic copies and of course will continue to receive
the TAASA Review by mail. You will be able to order additional
copies of the TR online.
You can search for items in the TAASA Review (by topic or
author) in a number of ways, as you will see in the TR section of
the website.
We hope you will use and enjoy our new website but dont forget
that the TAASAs Facebook page also gives you information on the
many Asian art events on offer, not just TAASAs.
Go to: www.facebook.com/taasa.org.

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Jewellery an exploration
13th October2015
At this meeting we extended our gaze
beyond textiles to other items of material
culture and focussed on jewellery. Marianne
Hulsbosch gave a broad introduction
to jewellery throughout Asia before
concentrating on the hair adornments worn
by women of the Indonesian island of
Ambon (see Mariannes article in this issue).
Sally Powell looked at Mamuli from Sumba.
Representations of female genitalia, Mamuli
are fashioned in gold & other metals to
be worn as earrings or pendants, or to be
secreted away as powerful sacred relics. Sally
also demonstrated that the omega shaped
motif is abundant on textiles and other
decorative items from across the region.
Carole Douglas took us to Northwest India
giving an interesting insight into the wearing
of nose rings by both the Hindu & Muslim
communities. Carole discussed the symbolism
of the wearing & placement of nose rings
which can indicate auspiciousness, marital,
wealth & community status as well as being
an Ayurvedic aid to health and well-being.

Margaret White rounded off this splendid

evening by sharing with us some items of
head adornment from her own collection
including two ornate, en-tremblant,
Chinese/Peranakan diadems featuring
kingfisher feathers & glass jewels, a huge
hollow obelisk-shaped, embossed silver
hairpin from the Muong people of Laos &
Vietnam and a Sanggori from the Kulawi of
Kaili people of Sulawesi. All these beautiful
items further illustrated the cultural
symbolism that is embodied in the material
culture of Asia.
Helen Perry

Dana shared her knowledge of natural dyes,

and showed actual cutch, pomegranite,
myrobalan, indigo and madder dyestuffs.
The processes were explained, with cotton
requiring lengthy pre-dye treatments to
enable the fibre to accept dyestuffs. Members
were able to experiment with these skills,
using madder root to dye cotton fabric,
employing bandhani resist techniques before
enjoying a well-earned afternoon tea. Many
thanks to Dana McCown for an interesting
hands-on afternoon!
Mandy Ridley

TAASA QLD TEXTILE INTEREST GROUP

South Indian textiles and Japanese
dying techniques
5 September 2015
In this workshop led by Dana McCown,
TAASA QLD Textile Interest Group were
shown vegetable and resistdyed pieces from
Danas textile collection, including indigo
dyed cotton from China,resist dyed cotton
and silk from India and silk shibori indigo
dyed fabrics from Japan.

Win Lee, Rod Sengstock and Tee Beng Kenglook on as Dana

McCowndiscusses a beautiful antique silk Odhani from the
Shekawati district of Rajasthan. Photo: Mandy Ridley

TAASA M E M B E RS DIAR Y
DECMBER 2015 FEBRUARY 2016
TAASA visit to APT8
QAGOMA, Brisbane
Saturday and Sunday 20
and 21 February 2016
PROGRAM
Saturday 20 February
Curator and expertled tours of APT
at QAGOMA.
Lunch: at GOMA Caf Bistro
Viewing of antique Indonesian textiles
from South Sumatra at QAGOMA.
Courtesy of Janet de Boer OAM.
Dinner: at local restaurant
Sunday 21 February
Morning: visit to the University of
Queensland Campus, St Lucia.
Curator-led tour of The National Artists
Self Portrait Prize Exhibition
Lunch: at private home accompanied
by an afternoon of Japanese musical
entertainment koto and shakuhachi
players.
BOOKING DETAILS
Places are limited to allow for maximum
appreciation of the exhibitions. First come,
first served.

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Estimated cost per person (including life

members): $120. Includes lunch and dinner
on Saturday, lunch and entertainment on
Sunday and some local transport costs.
Flights and accommodation private
arrangement.
Deposit $50 per person will secure
you a place.
Final balance will be notified and
required in January 2016
Please reserve a place/s by emailing
Gill Green at gillians@ozemail.com.au
or m. 0466 977 313
EFT payments: Account name:
The Asian Arts Society of Australia
BSB: 012003
Account no: 2185 28414. Please use
your name APT as reference.
TAASA IN VICTORIA
Member viewing of Exhibition Blue:
Alchemy of a Colour
Sunday 6 December 2015, 2 3pm
A tour of the NGVs exhibition with Carol
Cains, Curator of Asian Art. Blue: Alchemy
of a Colour will explore how artists have
created works in the blue and white

palette using a wide range of methods and

styles, to produce unique and exquisite
works of art. Blue reveals the fascinating
metamorphosis of pattern, form and
motif stemming from the global trade of
these works, and the tales told through
the use of this colour in ceramics, textiles,
woodblock prints and paintings.
The exhibition focusses on works from
the NGVs Asian collection and includes
Persian, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese
ceramics, indigo dyed textiles from China,
Japan, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and
India, and works from Egypt, England
and Italy.
This is a free event but bookings are
essential. RSVP: vic.taasa@gmail.com.
2016 Program
Victorian members have been asked for
their feedback on an extensive program
of events for 2016. Details will be sent out
as soon as the program is finalised. For
further information contact Boris Kaspiev
at vic.taasa@gmail.com or on 0421 038 491.

29

W H AT S ON : D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 - F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6
A S E L E C T I V E R O U N D U P O F E XHI B I T I O N S A N D E V E N T S
Compiled by Tina Burge
NSW

QUEENSLAND

Indias Disappearing Railways:

The 8thAsia Pacific Triennial of

A Photographic Journey

Contemporary Art (APT8)

Customs House Library, Sydney

The Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art,

26 October 2015 - 22 January 2016

Brisbane
21 November 2015 - 10 April 2016

Indias Disappearing Railways is both a

contemporary documentary, and a poignant
portrait of life on the sub-continents narrowgauge railways, evoking the very soul of
India. Australian photojournalist and travel
writer Angus McDonald (1962-2013) spent
several years documenting these lines,
travelling from the Himalayan foothills to
the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu, and from the
plains of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh to
the Western Ghats of the Deccan Plateau. In
a tribute to the country he lived and worked
in, McDonalds record is the only existing
contemporary photographic archive of these
remote and increasingly endangered lines,
capturing the fine nuances of those who
live, work and travel on the worlds most
sprawling rail network. His achievement
is all the more profound as many of these
lines are disappearing. He came to see their
survival as a symbol of the vast countrys
adaaptability, as well as its ability to absorb
outside influences.
On4 December 2015 at 12.30pm,
his partner and curator of the
exhibitionCatherineAnderson will give
an illustrated lecture on the story of Indias
Disappearing Railways, and McDonalds
work, at the Customs House, Sydney.
For further information go to:
https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.
gov.au/events/indias-disappearingrailways-a-photographic-journey
or angusmcdonaldtrust.org.

The latest APT will include works by over 80

artists from over 30 countries throughout Asia
and the Pacific. Reflecting the latest creative
developments in our region the 8thAPT
will include performance, video, kinetic art,
figurative painting and sculpture. Major new
commissions include a sprawling structural
installation of found materials by Indias Asim
Waqif and an elegant suspended sculpture
by South Koreas Haegue Yang.In addition,
artists from Mongolia, Nepal, the Kyrgyz
Republic, Iraq and Georgia will be represented
for the first time.
The special focus projects in APT8 are Kalpa
Vriksha: Contemporary Indigenous and
Vernacular Art of India- the first major display
of its kind in Australia - and the Melanesian
performance project Yumi Danis (We Dance),
which emerged from a creative exchange in
Ambrym, Vanuatu, in 2014.
In addition to the exhibition itself, APT8
encompasses APT8 Live, an ongoing
program of artist performances and projects;
a conference as part of the opening program;
extensive cinema programs; publications; and
activities for kids and families.
For further information go to:
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/whats-on/
exhibitions/apt8
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The Power of Pattern - the Ayako Mitsui
Collection
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
4 September 2015 -13 March 2016

Two Holy Men, Kambli Ghat, Aravali Railways (Rajasthan),

August 2006 - Angus McDonald

30

The unique Japanese art of dyeing textiles

using intricate paper stencils, called
katagami has been a major influence in the
development of the great tradition of kimono
art in Japan. The Power of Pattern explores
the immense variety of designs created
by Japanese artists working in katagami
and shibori dyeing and reveals the extent
to which European and Australian artists
adopted the designs in their own practices.
For more than 350 years the Mitsui family
in Japan has been associated with the art of

textiles and this display includes katagami

designs from the Ayako Mitsui private
collection.
More Ink than Ocean: The art of writing
in Islam
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
7 August 2015 -27 March 2016

The display presents one thousand years

of Islamic calligraphy from Iran, India
and Indonesia. Among the highlights is
the magnificent illuminated manuscript,
Mathnavi of Jalal al-Din Muhammad
Rumi (1641), and the work of the famous
calligrapher, Muhammad Hussein Kashmiri
(d.1620), on whom the Indian emperor, Akbar
the Great, bestowed the title The Golden Pen.
For further information about both
exhibitions go to:www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
VICTORIA
Blue - Alchemy of a Colour
National Gallery of Victoria - International, Melbourne
15 November 2015 - 16 March 2016

Cobalt blue pigment and indigo blue dye are

two of the most distinctive and influential
colourants employed by artists worldwide
and particular across Asia. Blue: Alchemy of
a Colourexplores blue and white in a wide
range of methods and styles, revealing the
metamorphosis of pattern, form and motif
stemming from the global trade of blue and
white works, and the tales told through their
use in ceramics, textiles, woodblock prints
and paintings.
The exhibition focusses on works from the
NGV Asian Art Collection and includes
Persian, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese
ceramics, indigo dyed textiles from China,
Japan, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and
India, and selected works from Egypt,
England and Italy.
For further information go to:
www.ngv.vic.gov.au
Indias Disappearing Railways
8 - 19 December 2015
fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Official launch:10 December 5-7pm

Please see above for information about the

exhibition.
For further information go to:
www.fortyfivedownstairs.com/exhibitions/

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

INTERNATIONAL
The Fabric of India
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
3 October 2015 -10 January 2016

The highlight of the V&As India Festival,

The Fabric of India explores the dynamic
and multifaceted world of handmade
textiles from India, spanning from the 3rd
century to the present day. Showcasing
the best of the V&As world-renowned
collection together with masterpieces from
international partners and leading designers,
the exhibition will feature over 200 objects,
many on display for the first time.
For more information go to:
www.vam.ac.uk/page/v/v-and-a-india-festival
Encountering Vishnu - The Lion Avatar
in Indian Temple Drama
19 December 2015 - 5 June 2016
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This exhibition highlights five rare wooden

sculptural masks that represent a largely
unrecorded category of late medieval
Indian devotional art. The masks depict
the protagonists in a deadly battle between

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 4

Vishnu in his man-lion avatar, Narasimha,

and an evil king whose destruction was
essential for the restoration of order in
the universe.
For further information go to:
www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/
listings/2015/encountering-vishnu
Drawn from Courtly India: The Conley Harris
and Howard Truelove Collection
Philadelphia Museum of Art
December 6, 2015 - March 27, 2016

Featuring masterful drawings from the

royal courts of northern India, the Conley
Harris and Howard Truelove Collection,
the exhibition includes practice sketches,
preparatory drawings, subtly modeled
scenes, and lightly colored compositions
created between the sixteenth and nineteenth
centuries. With a variety of images at
different stages of completion, the collection
allows for a fascinating examination of
Indian workshop practice.
For further information go to:
www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions

A JOURNEY ACROSS JAVA

(plus Flores and Komodo Extension)
17 August to 31 August 2016
Indonesia is a country of great diversity and
complexity with one of the world's most
fascinating societies. Yet the historical and cultural
differences of our nearest neighbour are vast,
arguably the widest of any pair of adjoining
countries. Author Ian Burnet has spent over 30
years living, working, travelling and guiding in
Indonesia. His latest book Archipelago: A Journey
Across Indonesia forms the basis of this new
tour. Interesting train journeys take us from our
starting point of Jakarta, Ibu Kota (the Mother
City). West, Central and East Java follow including
Yogyakarta, the World Heritage Listed sites of
Buddhist Borobudur and Hindu Prambanan and
other centres such as Solo, Malang and Surabaya.
The program concludes in Bali with an optional
extension to the rugged Nusa Tenggara island of
Flores and the dragons of Komodo National Park.
Land Only indicative cost per person
twinshare $4500 ex Jakarta and Denpasar
To receive a brochure or further
information contact Ray Boniface

H E R I TA G E D E S T I N AT I O N S
N AT U R E B U I L D I N G S P E O P L E T R AV E L L E R S

PO Box U237, University of Wollongong,

NSW 2500 Australia p: +61 2 4228 3887
e: heritagedest@bigpond.com
w: heritagedestinations.com.au
ABN 21 071 079 859

31