Kamar Ibu Dan Anak (Bedroom of a Woman and her Child), 1975 (Reconstruction 2006, 2011)

With his installation Kamar Ibu Dan Anak, Jim Supangkat takes us back to the Indonesia of the 1970s, a time when life was determined by a rigid, paternalistic regime – a circumstance that was to have fatal consequences for women and children. Supangkat presents a chair, a cupboard, and a child’s bed made of heavy, dark wood riddled with metal elements. Metal bars close off the bed; a pair of female legs, hanging on chains, are locked up in a cupboard with a metal door on one side and a glass front. Women and children are the prisoners of a dictatorship extending even into the most intimate space, the place where people sleep. And while the fatal effects on development and lives, especially on that of the children and thus also on the next Indonesian generation, remain unspoken and are barely imaginable, the repression and violence in such a social climate become physically tangible to viewers of the installation.
For over thirty years, the artist, curator, and art critic Jim Supangkat has significantly influenced current discourse on art in his homeland. In 1975, he founded Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (Indonesia New Art Movement), an artist’s group dedicated to redefining art and its possibilities of making an impact on social and cultural issues. He also founded several regional art forums in South East Asia. Since 2003, Supangkat curates the CP Biennale, an event committed to global representation that accounts for both non-Western and Western art. (EA)