lørdag den 30. maj 2015

MC.INDONESIA / JATIWANGI / BREBES / YOGYAKARTA JOURNEY 2015 no.3

Yogyakarta / Rice fields in front of my house

MC.Indonesia /Java Journey 2015

May 6 / Towards Artist Colony 'Jatiwangi Art Factory'
Cipatujah-Tasikmalaya 85 km.

I arrived at the town of Tasikmalaya after a beautiful drive along the rivers Langla and Wulan. The roads were OK and first 10 km. from Tasikmalaya began the traffic to be heavy.

I found without so much searching this hotel Santosa. It is not particularly exclusive, but has a friendly open, green, leafy and light pergola in the middle. where I now sit and enjoy a cup of coffee in front of my room.













I do a little reconnaissance

I left the hotel to see if there is something interesting I might capture with my camera. I also need to find an internet cafe to send my first MC.Journey. My Internet connection via iPhone has not worked the last week.

The Internet cafe I find, is a little dark room where young people play video game. They can not help me connect my computer into the system and no one seems to know the password to their WiFi.


The rain drums rhythmically to the beat of the imam's nasal sermon

4 pm. begins the rain drumming violently rhythmically to the beat of the imam's nasal sermon. I sit protected under the pergola and write on my MC.Joruney report.

Tomorrow I will arrive at the artist colony 'Jatiwangi Art Factory' in Majalengka.- I am looking forward to meeting some fellow artists.

I can not understand where all the rain disappears, now it had rain all the nine weeks I have found myself here in Indonesia which is very unusual because the rainy season had usually stopped. There have only been five days when it has not rained. Fortunately it does not rain in such long periods as it did in the beginning.

When it is not raining, there are mostly lovely sunshine that reaches 32 degrees, which is quite pleasant. It's the humidity and stagnant air which sometimes makes it a little unbearable. In between there are some gray skies.

Nissak from Kersan Art Studio, asked me how I was going for me regard to rain, since in Yogyakarta it had rained every day. On my MC.journey it has been raining in the evening for the most part and otherwise I have been lucky to find myself in security at a hotel like yesterday, when it rained both morning and evening.

Room no. 10

Room no. 10 could not lock from the outside, so I got another room on the other side of the pergola. Now I see that they rented out room no.10  to a young couple with no luggage. The door can only be lock from inside. An hour later, I see the young couple come out without locking the room door. The staff come in after and change sheets. From the next room, comes another young couple out. I do not know how long they have been there. This room is the sheets also immediately changed.

My imagination and logic tells me that it perhaps is a young married or engaged Muslim couples there in this way physically and mentally, are able to satisfy their needs, without involving the immediate family, if they live many family member together.   

In this hotel the young can rent a room cheap for a couple of hours and they only need to unlock the door from the inside and not the outside. So why would the hotel to spend time and money to repair the lock.

May 7 / Driving against Majalengka
Tasikmalaya - Majalengka 140 km.

It was perfect weather and the roads were fine. There was heavy traffic when I approached the bigger cities. When I came to the small town Damaraja after 70 kilometers drive, I chose to turning away from the major road, to run it more directly minor road towards the town of Majalengka, which I would save approximately 40 km. drive.

Selects alternative route that GPS would not recognize

The road was delineated on my regular card but not on GPS. The road was incredibly hole and destroyed the first 25 kilometers. I could only run 10-30 km. But the worst piece was the last 30 kilometers. Here was the dirt road running up completely, because of the huge trucks and rain. So I was forced to run down in the deep and often muddy ruts much of the way.

I was unfortunate at a time when my gearshift pedal hit a tree root and were bent, so I had big problems with changing gears.

I stopped, therefore, when I encounter a group of forest worker and truck drivers. I know they can help me fix gear pedal. One of them finds some iron pipe out of his truck and with them he fix the pedal.

I try to avoid to hit the wheel track land borders with one of the foot pedals. If you do that, you can not avoid the MC. to lies down on the page.

It happened 3 times. Each time I had to tighten my backpack for otherwise I have no chance to lift my MC. It was physically demanding. This is the first time on this trip I have to fight a little to get ahead.

Jatiwangi

In the city Katipaten I contact Arie on 'Jatiwangi Art Factory'. I told him that I would get a cup of coffee and then drive on towards Jatiwangi and then again contact him.

With various breaks it took 4 ½ hours to drive around 120 km.

’Jatiwangi  Art Factory’








Tedi og Arie

'Jatiwangi Art Factory' an active artist colony

On the big office where the artist write and drawn on the computer, I got a warm welcome, of approximately 8 people. I got a bit of knowledge about the place and they got a little information about me and why I have appeared to visit them.

It's been a little late, so at some point, we enter an other building where we got some food from a kind of open buffet.

I show them the photo of my installations I have created for Kersan Art Studio in Yogyakarta. They where very impressed with my installations. It's great with the positive response of one's work.








'Jatiwangi Art Factory' established in 2005 in a former Brick Factory, which is pretty dilapidated. The related housing was in better condition. Aries family consisting of 5 brothers and their mother owned the factory. The mother and two of the brothers live there along with a few other artists.

They have room for guests like me. The guest there stay longer, creating an exhibition or  do other artistic activity in cooperation with the site and its users.

The Factory provides space and technical facilities available to the local active artists. There are music workshop, pottery workshop and showroom. You can call it an open inspiration and gathering place for creative people. Over the years they have created many outreach activities such as exhibitions, performances and concerts.

Arie is multi-artist and I sense he is the coordinating and unifying person for all the creative expression. He tells me that the place trying to inspire and help ordinary. people to develop their creativity.

Many of the user, go to university and study economics or sociology and get here at the Art Factory an opportunity to develop their creative abilities.


Volunteers come and help the mother to cook

6 pm. are there life in the kitchen. The mother and 3 -4 other women and some children enjoy talking while they prepare different dishes food for the whole day. I understand that they come voluntarily and helps the mother. It's probably their way to support the artist colony on.

7:30, the women finished in the kitchen with the cooking and they disappear again and takes part of the food home to their own families. Now I get offered coffee and breakfast.  

On Sunday there will not be made public food. If you want food that day, there is some packets of noodles and eggs and some vegetables, so you can make your lunch and dinner.

Problems with my computer there constantly crashes

Second night at 'Art Factory' I have problems with my computer. It goes all the time in black and then starts again. It repeats itself again and again.

I can see that my computer has only 80 GB to work with. So I try to empty some iPhoto folders, but then it goes out.

I tried to give the computer a break when it was glowing. The break helped, now I could again work a little without interruption. 

Each time the computer went black, disappeared the past I have written. 
  
My charger to the computer will not turn on

The next morning I could not get the charger to my computer to work. Tedi, one of the resident artist and musician made me aware that it could be that the thin wire close to the transformer was broken. He had been out for that. He was right.

Tedi know a local electro mechanic there can fix it by direct physical break it up. We drove there on some Moutain bikes since he lived right in the neighborhood.

In front of his house under the pergola had the Electro mechanic established himself with his worktable, some contacts, some drawers and various electronic components. He broke the transformer brutally up and signs the layers apart to get into the wiring. He soldered and assembled it.



This MC.Journey I have chosen that would share my experiences with you friends and others seeking adventure and inspiration. Therefore, I am very dependent on my computer. Since my computer continued to go down I become really aware of how dependent it was for me as a work tool physically and mentally.

I might as well continue without the computer, but then I would be dependent on Internet cafes, and I would have problems with my photos.  

In the Art Factory I stayed for the most in the office in front of my computer. People was coming all day. Many disappeared directly into the music studio or other spaces. So the place seems very open as a kind of open cultur club.












Art Factory's economic structure

I ask Arie how the economic function, what should I, for example, pay for the days I stay. I did not have to pay anything when I was a guest. But how does it functioned. Do the users paid for food, electricity and rent, where did the money for the expenses come from.

They made sometimes an event and got some money otherwise the users supported the Factory when they had money. It seemed rather floating in my ear, it was as if Ariel could not or would not answer the question how the financial holding 'Jatiwangi Art Factory' was running.

Back in 1971, I helped to start and buy some dilapidated houses and factory buildings between Aarhus and Silkeborg in Denmark and establish the collective village 'Toustrup Mark' together with 35 other people. The place still functions as a collective village with about 60 residents, half of which are children. My Eks.hustru would not move over there, so I only came to live there six months.

Toustrup Mark's residents, were all from the start guided by democratic obligations in relation to the community. Here in the 'Art Factory' I have the feeling that it run much more anarchic, you are giving and doing something when you feel you want.

I stayed 4 days, one day longer than I had planned. I found myself well in these relaxed surroundings. I decided to pay the same to 'Jatiwangi Art Factory' as I would have paid for a hotel.















Andry and his daughter

Brick Factory

Andry, a friend of 'Art Factory' show me around on his and his family's Brick Factory, which is still active. He manages a portion of the Brick Factory. There is an incredibly functional order in the entire region. Here you can feel and see that there is workdiscipline.



 The neighbors to the brick factory had made these beautiful alternative bricklayer. 










May 11 / Tajiwangi - Berbes 120 km.

Before I drive on I have to fixed the electrical system on the MC. I have also to checked the oil. They consider it again should be replaced, it is too black. It does not sound good, it is only 500 km. since I got changed and usually, the oil has first to be changed after 2000 km.

When I arrived at Berbes I saw a huge hotel complex that looked completely deserted. In the open hallways I could hear the echo of my own hellooo. First at the end of the complex, there was a person who showed up.



With air conditioning and hot shower

The hotel was in its simplicity a little stylish. I could choose between a room for 150,000 IDR or a luxury or 200.000 IDR. With air conditioning and hot shower.

In the luxury rooms bathroom, there was no shower, but only pipe pieces that were closed with tape. In the eerie dark bordeau colored bath, there was water on the floor of 2 cm. height. How long had it been there. There were two taps with rubber tubing, but none of these lines of hot water.

The bathtub and toilet bowl different shades of bordeau red covered in lime stains, works pretty scary. An undercurrent of murder scenes from movies I've seen who have passed away in a bathtub, emerges on my mind.

May 12 / Berbes - Sokaraja 110 km.

On this road I have to overtakes many trucks, so I don't sit jammed in the traffic jams. Now I really need the motorcycle extra acceleration power when I overtake the trucks.
When I arrived at the city Sokaraja, I stop at a kind of Burger King. The chain is called 'Buntons' and besides burgers they sells also cakes in style. Here I can get coffee and use there WiFi. So I got translated and sent the English MC.Journey no.1.










’Atrium’  Resort & Hotel

From the main road I run into this 'Atrium' Resort and Hotel. It looks very exclusive. The price for a standard room was 388.000 IDR. (220 kr.) And luxury 888.000 IDR.

Admittedly, it is a bit expensive compared to my budget, but I need to affect my senses in a positive way. The room is furnished simply and tastefully - Japanese inspired.

Finally, I could take my first hot shower for 10 weeks in a bathroom where everything was stuck on the walls.

The director offers me a luxury room

I approached the counter because I had trouble getting through and use their WiFi Internet connection. The director stepped in and was very apologetic and called a technician and asked him to solve the problem.

I got a long nice chat on my terrace with the director, who spoke perfect English, about the social differences that were between Denmark and Indonesia.

A little later contacted the Director me as I sat on the terrace. He would very much like to offer me a room there was twice as big. He was sure I would appreciate it for the same price.

I thanked him a thousand times for the offer, but had to say no thnaks to the offer. I could not bear having to pack and unpack again. At the same time, I really like this small room with terrace that overlooked a very simple plastered wall, aesthetically painted in a little pale-pink tone with tall slender trees in front. A calm groomed wall that signals order and harmony. And not like the wall in Cipatujah out by the Indian Ocean, where one could sense the slow decay that was about to eat into the wall and one's subconscious.

From our cozy gatherings, he probably would be kind and give me this very generous offer for the same payment.

Director


Now I sit in a luxury hotel room, with the door out to the garage
where I parked my motorbike


The director offers me again a luxury room

I decided to stay at the Atrium / Resort and Hotel an extra day to write more on my travel report before I got back to Yogyakarta, where I had to concentrate me on my Installations.

When I paid for a day more, the director came out from his office and again he offered me the luxury room because he thought I would enjoy it. This time I accepted the offer.  

He show me the bigger rooms. While the roomservice completed cleane the room, we sat on my new twice as large terrace and talked about the difference between Dane and Indonesians.

The hotel is built in a harmonious classical modern Javanese style. The staff exhibit discipline and presence. Things must be absolutely 100% okay.  







 

May 14 / Sokaraja – Yogyakarta 150 km.

At the breakfast buff, I talk with a former sales representative, who has traveled extensively in Europe. He tells me that he loves to go by train and it only takes 4-5 hours to get to Yogyakarta. But with the car if it's rush hour, it may take 10-12 tim.

He makes me quite nervous, because I thought that it only would take 5-6 tim. to drive the 200 km. On a MC. it is possible to move faster through the traffic jams.

I had agreed to meet with the two assistants who helped me with my exhibition, to meet them in the gallery Kersan Art Studio 4 pm.

Although it is a public holiday in Indonesia's there is some heavy traffic. From Purworejo I choose the direct road over the mountain top.

I had feared that it was a worn mountain road, but it turned out to be an almost new paved road that was both pretty twisted and steep. A perfect stretch of road, if you like mountain driving. The trip was incredibly beautiful, with very little traffic.

Yogyakarta  / Kersan Art Studio 

I arrived at Kersan Art Studio 2 pm. and could  see that all my Installations looked nice. It dripped from most of the hanging bamboo in Floating Soul. The jars in Lifetime / Time Life dripped also OK 

I drove to Awangs house to unpack and change clothes as there was some work I have to do with the Installations.



When I came back 4 pm. one of the jars in the Life Time / Time Life, was smashed on the floor. A string that held the wheel had come loose.

May 19 my show close, so I have to live with that one of the jars is out of play. I arrange jar artistically on the floor.

Installations / Kersan Art Studio / April 19 - May 19.  2015

The material I chose for my exhibition are Indonesian everyday materials like bamboo and clay - in the form of jars and bowls, as well as a common Indonesian visual symbol language. In this way I hope both physically and mentally to engage in dialogue with the Indonesian spirit.


'FLOATING SOUL'

- The title 'Floating Soul' matches the experience I have of the Indonesian Soul in general. Indonesian soul takes life with a serenely as the hanging bamboo in my Installation 'Floating Soul'. Indonesians flowing quietly in a horizontal position with the flow and give in to strong external forces.






 
'LIFE TIME / TIME LIFE'

Symbolic bamboo deathbed, facing west, toward Mecca, for an Indonesian rice farmer who slowly falls asleep with the 3 most important tools that were necessary for him and his family's survival through a long life. - Symbolic clay jar, life-tank slowly emptied and life is running out. Life is time and time is life.





SALT LIFE'
Life Circle




'SALT LIFE'
Life Circle

- The Eclipse of Life, 365 black sooty clay bowls, just as many as days in a year, bottoms up, so to speak - rooted up in a symbolic protest. Mahatma Gandhi led in 1930 a 400 kilometers long march to the sea to demonstrate against the government's salt monopoly, symbolicly a struggle for freedom. The salt of life.



It was exactly the same MC.Honda I rented in 2009

When I handed MC.Honda Tiger back to the rental agencies, I asked her how long she had had this MC.Honda. They had bought from new in 1998. I told her I rented a MC.Honda same year and model in 2009 where I had to make a 4-week MC.Journey also starting from Yogyakarta and further around Bali. At that time I rented it from a agencies close to the train central station. It fitted perfectly fine, for they had a rental agencies of their company 'Fortuna' there back in 2009. The symbolic circle is rounded

On the whole MC. trip I met incredible kindness from women who would like to be photographed and talk, what I didn't expected. At the same time I saw very few women who were completely covered. So Indonesians take religion, like everything else, very relaxed and laid-back.



May 16 / Flight to Jakarta

Next morning 5:30 am. comes the ordered taxi that drove me to the airport 100.000 IDR. My flight to Copenhagen, fly from Jakarta, with a stop over in Doha.

I have agreed with Lenny, director of Kersan Art Studio Whereas in Jakarta that I visit her and her husband Michael, before the evening I fly to Copenhagen.    

 


It takes energy to travel and explore

This MC.Indonesien Journey, was a bit more strenuous and not as pleasurable as I had hoped. My work with the exhibition at Kersan Art Studio, which lasted eight weeks, had been hard.

My MC. Travel has always considered strenuous when I imposed my role as an active photographer, and reports of the events I get explored. A travel and communication form that suits me as it allows me to look outward and inward in my reflections.

When I start something, I try to give and work hard an  concentration as I can. But it didn't work so good whith the Indonesians, they are experts in, being able to relax in the moment and glide with the flow.

I have very difficult to glide with the flow, I want to decide which direction I will float and sometimes I had to fight against the current. It requires effort and energy, but it also strengthens me to fight for what I think is right for oneself and for society as a whole. As an artist it is an important feature.

On this trip, I have from the beginning decided, that I would try, not to drive more that 200 km. And very few times I try to drive a alternative routes. So physically, my body has had it very well, since it's been very few times I've overloaded it.

It has been a very laid-back MC. journey - completely in the Indonesian spirit.




Rice fields in front of Awang's house / Yogyakarta

On this journey, I have met very great openness and I have enjoyed
sometimes to lay back, feel my body, my soul
and the Indonesian beautiful spirit.


’Floating Soul’

Bjarne v.H.H.Solberg
Artist & Scenographers
www.BvHHS.com
BvHHS@email.dk