'Pemeliharaan' / 'Maintenance'
420 secs
Art Performance

 

‘Pemeliharaan’ / ‘Maintenance’ is an art performance that signifies the maintenance of the spiritual maturation of a woman through reconnecting with the fundamental oneness of all things that manifests a central system of thought, experience and belief. Human existence is conceptualised as a movement toward perfecting oneself through cultural artifacts. The ritual involves visuals and symbols from the Javanese traditions that ties in and reflects our close relationships with our physical environment , the spiritual world and our ancestors.

 

 The involvement of batik and its ideology is that it acts as a kind of cosmic border or gate at which power is transferred to the assemblage of symbols on the cloth and its wearer. This is the ideology of  maintenance of life & order among the javanese. The intricate and time-demanding practice of making batik has always been associated with qualities of patience and perseverance, virtues repeatedly praised in the Quran and Hadiths and the admonition ‘Harus hati tenang’ (The heart must be calm). In this reflection, one disassociates one self from "the principle of sufficient reason"; one "loses" oneself to such a degree that the person and the object "become one," and the person becomes a pure, painless, timeless subject of knowledge.