Alia Swastika

Curatorial Statement:

 The last exhibition I was involved in before the pandemic was an exhibition by the Indonesian artist Citra Sasmita presented in Yeo Workshop in Singapore, from January to March 2020. Citra is a Balinese artist who recently started tracing her own lineage in Bali and critically looked into how women are positioned within Balinese society, from ancient times to today. She began her research with the canonical Balinese bible called Kakawin, and investigated how women are portrayed in relation to the discourse on sexuality represented in the bible. Most of the texts in Kakawin were written by men, and they were distributed only within the royal privileged family. The texts illustrate how women were seen as sexual objects of desire for men from high social status in the past.

 Citra decided to re-interpret the texts, applying her feminist approach to challenge the established mindset within the Balinese culture in regards to women’s status in contemporary society. She changed the figures in the text with all female bodies, and placed women in a more significant timeline of civilization. In her drawings, women were central in the first creation of the world, and they play active roles in various stages of ecological developments. Somehow, I connect Citra’s project with many texts by Vandana Shiva, on the importance of the role of women in keeping the earth and the life of the people. Women’s experiences are not just part of the routine of everyday life, but should be seen further as a collection of knowledge and wisdom. I think one of the most important aspects of Citra’s project is to transform the male gaze of women’s bodies into a process of knowledge production.

 Citra uses the materials that are generally used in traditional Balinese paintings, twisting our perception of their traditional form and critical content. For the installation, the structures often refer to traditional Balinese architecture forms, to connect the myth and canonical texts to the real parts of Balinese beliefs. Visually beautiful and intriguing, Citra’s projects invited the audience to re-question the most common ideas of Bali as an exotic place, and transformed it into a provocative and progressive mode of thinking. In these times, I see how women are taking a central role in keeping the world moving, providing food for families and caring for their surroundings—starting a new cycle of life: investigating the possibility of the rebirth of mankind.