Situs Spesifik

MELTING BILLBOARD

ERIC WIDJAJA

The high population density of the city of
Jakarta serves as an alluring market for a variety
of products. As a result, billboards mushroomed, one
on top of another, without any sense of aesthetics,
taking over other spaces. A sense of tedium arises
as we no longer care with the messages and
presence of the billboards; there are merely repetitions,
visually as well as contextually. And don’t be
surprised if you find the same models on many of
the billboards. Eric’s work transforms the billboard
by “melting” it, presenting a new message that he
wishes to transfer to other billboards.
Eric Widjaja is the founder of Thinking*Room Inc., a
graphic design studio with a focus not only on the design
aspect, but also on the creative concept as a whole. Before
concluding his study at the Academy of Art San Francisco,
California, Eric did a stint at the Landor Associates, helping
to manage several projects of brand identity, print, packaging,
and multimedia design for such clients as Levi’s, GE, and
Xerox. Today, his graphic design studio has several national
and international clients.

MENTENG PARK: STORY FROM THE PAST

CECIL MARIANI

The Menteng Park has a long history—from the Viosveld sport ground in 1921, to become the Menteng Stadium in the sixties, into the soccer club headquarter that has been the city’s source of pride: Persija. Years passed. The glory faded and the history became frozen in time. In the early 2000s, many stalls and roadside vendors made the site their base, providing the reason for the local government to get rid of the blemishes, to ensure the site’s congruence with the encroaching commercialization in the Menteng area. In 2006, the Menteng stadium was torn down to make way for the Menteng Park. The public strongly opposed this illegal move, but still the project went on, and now the Menteng Park is still in place, visited by people who are hungry for more green open spaces. How many of them, however, remember, know, or will know that the park was once a sport stadium? Cecil Mariani brings back the memory. She sought documentations from the Tempo magazine, obtained three photos by Ilham Soenharjo, compared the site plan of the Menteng Stadium with that of the Menteng Park to compare visitors’ points of view on the pictures. The photos have been produced in transparent colors, providing us with the picture of the past and present at the same time. The park that we are now seeing is a remnant of the stadium, along with the memories recorded in the picture. Cecil shares the memory and brings back the past history into the context of the present spatial reality.

Cecil Mariani was born in Jakarta, 1978. She graduated from the Department of Visual Communication Design, Pelita Harapan University, Jakarta. She received an award from the Output magazine of the German Design Council in 2000 and 2001, and was the Outstanding Winner for Miscellaneous Category from 10th Design Competition, How Design Magazine, USA, 2002. Some of her works have been published in The Big Book of Logos 5 (David E. Carter; Watson Guptil Publication, USA, 2007). In 2006, she served as the co-curator of the mata|hari exhibition, an exhibition of works by design students of the Pelita Harapan University. In the last few years, she has been involved in collaborative work for visual design for the performing art in Jakarta and Singapore. Aside from teaching at her almamater, she also works as a freelance graphic designer and lately she has been designing for Komunitas Salihara.

OF NAILS AND FLAT TIRES

CARTERPAPER

On some roads in Jakarta, tire repairmen have
a creative way to raise their profit: spreading nails
on the roads at night, a few hundred meters from
where they sell their ware. Many unfortunate bike
riders are forced to push their bikes before they
finally find their saviors—who are actually the cause
of their misery. Members of the Carterpaper group
often suffer from this fate. They decided to observe
the roads in Jakarta, trying to find out where such
deed often takes place, and then made some sets
of two warning road signs placed at some spots.
One of the signs warns riders regarding the danger
of nails on the road. If the riders still find themselves
unlucky, several meters after the first sign, Carterpaper
put up another sign, informing that a tire repairman
can be found nearby. Carterpaper put up the sets
of signs at Cawang, MT. Haryono, Monas area,
Rawasari area, and Klender area.
Carterpaper is a group of artists with the following
members: Wendy Maulana, Alfan Sudrajat, Sakti Fhana,
Syarifudin Haromain, Juan Zaki Ershad, and Anditya W.
From a class room at the Jakarta State University (UNJ),
they went on to create works using a variety of media in
the Jakarta public spaces since 2006. Their work had won
one of the five Special Awards of Jakarta 32°c 2008, an
exhibition of visual works by Jakarta university students,
held by ruangrupa and Komplotan Jakarta 32c at the
National Gallery of Indonesia.
Installment of work: January 28, 2009, at 11 p.m.

SARINAH : WITHOUT NAME

Angki Purbandono

Opened on August 17, 1962, Sarinah is the first modern shopping center in Indonesia. Soekarno, the first president of Indonesia, picked the name Sarinah from the name of his childhood carer, from whom Soekarno received much love and care, teaching him to love commoners like Sarinah, an ordinary person with extraordinary heart. Today Sarinah is in decline, in parts because efforts of preservation fail to maintain its position in the midst of other malls. It is now cracked and suffers from a fivedegree tilt. Sarinah, as the idea of an elegant Indonesian female, has not had a chance to become popular and as a building it is no longer graceful.

Angki Purbandono put up an old picture on the billboard at one corner of the Sarinah square. It is a black-and-white picture of an elegant woman, superimposed over an old note wishing happiness and prosperity in life. Is she Sarinah, whom we have never really known? Or is it an idea of Indonesian femininity? A forgotten character in an old note, in a neglected business center. Angki Purbandono was born in 1971. Lately, this resident of Yogyakarta often uses the technique of collage and scanning to make his works. In 2005 – 2006, he received the Asian Artist Fellowship Scholarship from the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Republic of Korea) in Seoul, Korea. His works have been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, for example in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. His latest solo exhibition was “Happy Scan” at the Biasa Art Space, Bali.

In 2007, he began his “Anonymous” project when he participated in Landing Soon, a residence program by the Rumah Seni Cemeti (Yogyakarta) and Artoteek (The Hague). In the project, he collected old photos from the second-hand market in Yogyakarta, categorized the photos, and created works out of the collection. He keeps on collecting old pictures and his collection to date has reached up to 3,000 old pictures. The series of photographs was also exhibited at the 3 Young Contemporary Artists exhibition at the Valentine Willie Fine Art (Kuala Lumpur) in 2007.

SALE

ALI AKBAR

Jakarta has a season of competitions with the name of SALE. Just like ants following the trail of sugar, buyers flock to Sale events. People’s desire of buying coveted items in low prices serves as a strong magnet. Well-known brands related to lifestyle become mouth-watering targets. How important the things actually are? SALE presents new promises of satisfying one’s consumptive desire. What if it is a false promise? Do people, once they find out that the Sale is not there, feel relieved because they can then keep their money intact, or do they become angry? Ali Akbar’s work might serve as an interesting parameter, by presenting a fake brand under the name of Fakery London, with 80% price reduction—which is a fantastical and unrealistic figure. A figure that might trigger one’s awareness, or create madness.

Ali Akbar was born in 1974. After studying at the Department of Graphic Design at the Jakarta Arts Institute, he works as an art director in the advertising industry, such as at the Ogilvy Jakarta, Leo Burnett Jakarta, and Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur. Many of his advertising works have garnered numerous awards, nationally and internationally. Some of the awards are the Citra Pariwara award, Adoi Advertising Award, and London International Advertising Award. Some of his works have also been exhibited at the D&AD Sector Showcase Exhibition, London. After six years of working in the advertising industry, he decided to quit and established the Ali Akbar Studio, to explore photography and digital imagery. In the making of this work, Ali Akbar has been assisted by Diego Nelwan for digital imaging, Vina Posuma as model and stylist, and Evelyn Pritt for the design and web publishing.