It’s been a while and it will probably also be a while until I post another post again. My residency and exhibition are finished and packed, my trip through Indo has come to an end and I am leaving again. With mixed feelings I leave Yogja, which has become a second home for me. I gained so many new friends and brothers that it makes me a bit sad to think that I will not see them for a while. Yogja captured my hart or at least the people I’ve met did. I came in confused and got out confused again. But this time it is probably the wodka. Back to Belanda…sudah.

Sampai Nanti Lagi.

It’s been a while since my last post but after my exhibition things went in fast foreword. It started with some quality time together with my girlfriend Sas, who I hadn’t seen for three months, followed by documenting, arranging paper works and being a tour guide through Yogja.

I finally finished most of the preparations for my upcoming catalogue and visa permit and it was finally time to let loose and enjoy this beautiful country. We flew overseas to Kalimantan to spent some quality time in the jungle, had breakfast on a boat at a floating markets, watched soccer on the streets of Punkalanbun on flew back to Jawa again to visit my grandfathers grafe.

After this exciting trip we headed strait to west-Jawa to swim at the foot of the Krakatau volcano, hiked threw miles of rainforest to come back to the metropolis of Jakarta again. As you can read my time of absence has been in the greater good of exploration and this will continue on for the upcoming weeks. We will explore this beautiful archipelago in all its diversity and colour and hope to refresh our bodies as well as our minds. You can already have a slight preview of our trip(s) at my flickr page, just click on the image above.

Until the next adventure! Sampai nanti lagi!

Enjoy my latest works of alienation.
Click on the image to go to Flickr for the documentation of my latest artworks.

Victor Zwiers adalah seniman muda asal Den Haag, Belanda yang sedang melakukan proses residensi di Ruang MES 56. Pria berumur 25 tahun ini masih tercatat sebagai mahasiswa di Interactive Media Design di The Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag, Belanda.

Selama tiga bulan tinggal di Yogyakarta, Victor mencoba beradaptasi dengan lingkungan baru, pola pikir baru, dan kondisi cuaca yang benar-benar berbeda dengan negara asalnya. Banyak kendala yang tak ia kuasai, tentu saja kendala terbesar adalah bahasa dan batasan waktu residensi.

Beberapa aktivitas untuk penunjang residensinya telah ia laksanakan. Awalnya ia melakukan presentasi publik di jurusan Fotografi, Fakultas Seni Media Rekam, Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta. Kemudian di paruh kedua selama residensi ini, ia mengadakan lokakarya dengan mahasiswa di Yogyakarta. Lokakarya tersebut dilaksanakan di Ruang MES 56. Dalam lokakarya itu Victor mencoba mengetengahkan gagasan konseptual potret ke beberapa mahasiswa fotografi dan non fotografi. Banyak hal yang ia alami selama berinteraksi dengan peserta lokakarya. Mulai dari beda cara berfikir, pemahaman, dan budaya jam karet yang kerap terjadi pada saat pelaksanaan proses lokakarya. Hasil dari lokakarya ini juga di presentasikan dengan setingan pameran kecil hasil-hasil karya dan foto dokumentasi prosesnya.

Tibalah Victor di bagian cerita akhir dari residensinya dalam pameran bertajuk Contact Lens. Pameran ini diselenggarakan di galeri Ruang MES 56. Mulai tanggal 4 hingga 25 juni 2010, Victor mencoba menyajikan beberapa karya hasil dari persinggungannya dengan beberapa elemen masyarakat. Seperti pada karya Seribu MAN, dimana ia memotret pekerja parkir di beberapa tempat. Bagi Victor ini adalah ironi dari sebagian kecil realita yang terjadi di dunia pekerjaan khususnya di Yogyakarta. Ia melihat pemerintah kota kurang menyentuh pekerja-pekerja parkir berpenghasilan seribu perkendaraan ini. Keanehan itu ia tunjukan dengan cara mencetak foto pekerja parkir di lembaran uang seribu hasil dari jasa parkir yang mereka terima. Selain Seribu MAN masih banyak karya-karya yang ia buat seperti Indonesian Traffic, Cauples/Relation, Photothonic DNA, Time Curves, One-Hour Reception, My Facebook Connections, dan Emptyness/Shallowness.

Akhirnya, selamat menikmati karya-karya keterasingan dari Victor Zwiers.

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Victor Zwiers from The Hague, the Netherlands, is a young artist currently having a residency at Ruang MES 56. The 25 years old gentleman studies Interactive Media Design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

At some stage of his 3 months stay in Yogyakarta, Victor challenged himself in adapting to new surroundings, different way of thinking, and completely opposing weather. Obstacle after obstacle came in the way; the biggest were language barrier and time limit of the residency.

He also carried out numerous supporting activities; giving public presentation in the Department of Photography, Faculty of Recording Media of Indonesian Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta for the kick-start. Afterward, at the second-half of his residency, a workshop with Yogyakarta college students was organized and took place at Ruang MES 56. In the workshop, Victor tried to feature the idea of conceptual portrait to both photography and non-photography students, and had to deal with some incidents amid his interaction with the workshop participants; from differences of opinion, understandings, to the habit of rubber time (being late) that happened frequently during the workshop process. The outcomes are presented as well in a setting of a small exhibition of the works and the documentation photos of the process.

Then, Victor reached the last episode of his residency; an exhibition entitled Contact Lens. Being held at the gallery of Ruang MES 56 from June 4 – 25, 2010, he lays bare various works derived from his encounters with several elements of society. As in the work “Seribu (One Thousand) MAN”, he took shots of parking guys in some places. According to Victor, it is an irony of small numbers of reality happening in occupation world, particularly in Yogyakarta. He observed the lack of care from the government towards those workers who earn one thousand rupiah from each parked vehicle. He highlights this strangeness by printing photos of the parking guys on the leaves of the one thousand rupiah they earned. Besides “Seribu (One Thousand) MAN”, he created many others such as Indonesian Traffic, Couples/Relation, Photothonic DNA, Time Curves, One-Hour Reception, My Facebook Connections, and Emptyness/Shallowness.

Lastly, please enjoy Victor Zwiers’ works of alienation.

I entered this country in a dream, a romanticized perspective of what could be. A country and culture influenced by decades of oppression and liberated by a beautiful pristine nature. I came here full of marvellous stories passed on by generations in search of my own roots. I expected a lot but the last thing I expected was: reality.

At first my body and mind had to adjust to this new and strange society filled with new and strange impressions and impulses. This took longer than expected. I felt so strange to be in the country that my ancestor originated from, the far away land wasn’t far away anymore. This unreal reality held its grip over me across the upcoming months. I just couldn’t realize that I was finally here, back too where I came from, at the beginning, at the end.

My structured life was far from near and time seemed to seep away between the cracks of the new and strange. I just had to go with the natural flow of life and order in this new world and try to adapt as soon as my body could process. This process was often interrupted by my emotional adaptation, raging inside with new and mixed feelings of what was and what would be. Freeing myself of these emotions and letting them run wild was for me the only way to connect back to reality, the natural way.

Being freer, emotionally, supported the growth of my confidence as an artist and as a person. It made me realize that this stimulated my communication with other people because I communicated more from feeling then from reason. This felt like a very natural thing to do. I became more aware of theses natural aspects that this new culture and country brought. Things did not seem so strange any more.

I still had a hard time connecting back to reality and felt that I was on the brink of penetration but something was holding me back. I still was not here in this time and space. I was fighting, fighting to get back, fighting to wake up from this dream state. I didn’t know that I was fighting my own denial. I was so caught up in trying to integrate, produce and connect with this new dimension that I forgot to see my own trails and tribulations. I first had to be free from that before I could enter this new reality. This moment of clarity opened the door for all of the things the universe wanted to show me. It became a matter of survival, emotionally, physically and mentally. Every aspect of my life was up for renewal. My relationships, responsibilities, behaviours and perspective all were brought to the table to be revised. It was like life hit me in the face and didn’t stop until it hit out the last drop of distorted reality.

And that was what it was, my life, a series of distorted realities created by me, defined by me. The feeling of this realisation was one of the most beautiful feelings I’ve ever experienced. It was so hard, painful and beautifully sad that I felt life flowing back naturally and gradually. After acknowledging and accepting these painful truths I finally flowed back into reality once again. Nature had reset my body, mind and soul for this new and captivating country and culture. I created a new structure, which supported me lot in working individually, autonomous and efficient. I came to terms with the fact that not everything will work out like I want and that I should let it work out more naturally instead of forcing it in a specific direction. I finally realize that process is the most important factor and that beauty lies in the things that are not perfect and finished. Realisation is the keyword here. I now finally realise and experience the moment instead of contemplating it. Artistically this also had great impact on my way of communicating with my work and seeing it n a new context. The realisation that my work lacks some form of commercial context is something I should explore in the future. I experience that my work creates some kind of barrier for people to connect with and maybe this commercial context will stimulate the connection between my art and society. This is also one of the factors that have a great influence for the survival as an autonomous artist.

My experience is that my art is dependent on collaboration between me and other people and that this connection defines my works as well. This sometimes makes it hard to see what my role in this relation is and what the connection between my artwork and me is. It depicts for me to be the ultimate example of modern art today; who is the artist and when is it autonomous? The beauty of this is that I see my work naturally evolving towards a subject that I am passionate about, people, and relationships. It is this relationship what gives my art its social context and value. Adapting this natural way of creation produces a lot of freedom in my process and way of thinking. It opens my work up for new impulses and stimulates me to explore my feelings, emotions and connections to other people.  Getting a better understanding about the relationship between me and my work as well as me and my subject(s) really helps me to develop my methodical way of working and communicating through my work.

As a person I feel that I have learned much more about cultural/human relationships and about how I can transfer my interest and focus into works of art. I had significant difficulty at first to transfer these interests into projects. Now I see that my focus was out of reach for my own perspective. The distance was to great, this made the focus to blurry. I know now that I should focus more on relations and connections that are more close to my own nature and experiences. This creates more detailed and personal projects that really share my perspective on society, culture and cultural relations.

I see, experience and realize that I often think that I am in close contact with my inner self but that the facts prove otherwise. I realize that this realisation is the first step towards being an autonomous artist as well as person. My work and perspective have grown a lot because of this and my help to create more clarity in my life and work. This will help me to focus my work and individual talents better and will give more depth and context to my process.

This experience gave my new insights and relations, more brothers and sisters and a new home away from home. I finally feel grounded.

The end is in sight and I must say it comes with some relief. At the moment I am finally intergraded (for the most part) and structured here in Indonesia. This helps a lot in the department of production. Just a couple of weeks (2,5) until my solo exhibition will be held and I have the feeling that it will be great! Most work and projects are in production and the date is set. June 4th I will have my first solo exhibition!

Today (Actually 2 days a go, had a little break) was a good day full of decisions, feedback and organisation. I finally see it all coming towards tangible results. Although these results come with a lot of extra costs, the results will be great! Reflecting on this is at the moment is quite hard because me mind is distracted or looking for some rest. I feel that I already have grown a lot as a person, artist and I acquired a lot of new perspectives and insights. This already makes this residency a success from my point of view but of course I want to finish this with some great results and a party as well! I was suggested to enter one specific artwork for the upcoming ARTJOGJA, art fair. This made me happy and proud that at least one of my projects has great potential and quality, contextually, aesthetically and conceptually.

Because of this experience I feel that I as an artist still have a lot to learn in adapting to new cultures and translating my experiences or interest into relevant projects. My methodical way of working and my active role in communicating with my environment are among the points that still need a lot of work. Personally I feel much more in control, confident and connected to myself, reality and my emotions. This said and realized I can have peace with my situations and evolve them naturally without draining myself from a lot of energy. As I go along I tried to be more aware of my environment, social relations and cultural differences and tried to enjoy all of these impulses, realize them, connect. As my residency progresses I finally understand that not all works have to be finished. Some are just experiments and some failed to be the best they “could” be, but non-the less they are progress. In my realisation I now have more room to breath and create work. This also gives me more time to take a step back and focus to reality again. These projects should inspire my future projects and should allow the possibilities to bring back pieces of this culture, mindset and perspective to my next place of residence. Now my focus in creating work has changed and is now not longer focused on “end results” but on shape and progress.

Being here in Indonesia really helps me a lot in getting back to reality, getting out of my head and confronting myself with my own self assumptions and assimilations. I know now that I often think more than that is really reality, but maybe that’s why I am a creative person…

Sampai Jumpa.

This past week was one of the hardest I had to endure in my period of stay here in Indonesia. The reality of time is catching up with me, my final exhibition is creeping up on me and my wound is forcing me to a daily routine of cleaning with care. Cleaning with care and caution of getting wet. Showering in Indonesia is already an experience of its own (mandi) and purely consists out of a bucket of cold water. A the moment I can’t even enjoy that nice splash of cold water because then my bandage will get wet or infected, what a joy. But I will endure it.

I finally came tot the realisation that I wasn’t living in reality; I lost sight what was important to me and didn’t actively participate in life. My accident showed me my vulnerability, my irresponsible behaviour but also changed my perspective on being an adult and taking responsibility for my life and actions. Added the fact that I didn’t really pay attention to my girlfriend in the past few weeks, resulted in life slapping me in the face and throwing me back into reality. When I started this journey, I didn’t think it would be easy, living and working in another culture, being separated from my family and friends.

Now I finally REALISE that it isn’t and that realisation and feeling was at times hard to handle. In the end I found that this is all part of this beautiful experience and that accepting that and taking responsibility for that will help me to understand my self and my art and process more optimal and clear. Realising and accepting this makes life for me here better as well. This hard challenge stimulates and motivates me to be more than I can be and my progress is finally showing its fruits. My first artworks are in production and I finally know where to go, what to do and how to do it! My bahasa Indonesia is getting a bit better and I am more actively busy in reaching out to people and life itself. It makes me proud about; being me, handling these hard challenges and taking responsibility for that. Being positive and centred about my projects and life here makes it more than an experience, it makes it life.

Just a few weeks to go (first week of June) until my first solo exposition and I’m excited and stressed at the same time. I’m just really curious how it will look like and will feel. This week will be another fun filled week with work, exhibitions, wedding(s) and discussions! I’ll try to update as much as possible, for you, me and my progress

Aku tidak tahu.

And were back in reality! The last few days were emotional, mentally challenging and physically draining but we (Me & Alex) survived. Now were back once again to embrace and exploit this wonderful opportunity that’s called “our residency.” It seemed I was living in a bubble, my own universe of denial and limited perspective.

Finally my brain started to work after the overload of stimulants I endured over the last few months. It is unreal to acknowledge that you haven’t been in this reality for the last period in time. Now I finally see my opportunities and feel grounded once more. It was hard accepting it but my crash forced me to face the truth. I feel reborn so too speak and even more enthusiastic about creating my projects.

The progress of my project is going steady and I feel confident that I will make a fantastic exhibition. It’s still stressful and nerve wrecking but that’s part of it I guess. Speaking of progress, my big 2nd degree burn is healing very well and Dr Paulus say’s that my skin will be the same colour after 4 to 6 months. So, no giant scar!! Yeah, lucky me!

It seemed that I forgot al the aspects of what make a residency a residency. After talking to the boys (Or Jimbo actually) I realised that it’s all about the stories. The stories I encounter here in comparison to my own society and life. My focus was off and is renewed once again. My first focus laid more on the learning experience, learning new techniques, perspectives and not so much in telling stories. The sad thing is that I’ve always thought I was telling stories but here it just seemed to vanish from my mind and work.

My first artworks are actually just an exercise, a way to help me on my way. Although I think I’m telling a story with that about the details that make an image, that make life, life here, no were else. Maybe it isn’t a long story, a clear story or for some it’s just too open for interpretation. It tells the story of the person by the abstraction of details, shapes and colours. Every work is as unique as is the person who made the photos. Every work tells it’s own story about the personality and life of its creator, open for interpretation just like life itself.

Being over the half of my residency I see that I still have a long way to go in creating my own process and use of mediums. It’s a hard and difficult process and very challenging indeed. I feel the growth and embrace the challenges. I feel captive by my own limitations but free by my ambitions and desires.

Santai.

Since yesterday the universe tried to tell me something about my childish nature. I know this because the day started, after I made a new artwork, with a furious creative director of MES telling me so. I could see his point of view and was a bit shocked that I didn’t see it myself as well. You think your serious, professional, responsible, tolerant, but sometimes life just hits you in the face. In my case it was the road.

After celebrating Queensday with the Dutch population in Yogja (± 50+ of age) I drove home to find my faith at the last intersection, somewhat 50m from my home. I was almost at the traffic lights when they jump on green; I was still having some speed and drove around the waiting audience. Unfortunately there was one guy who was just as in a hurry as me, only he had to turn right and I just had to go straight. Well you all know what happened next! I drove myself into the guy crashing, burning and blurring. I don’t know much about it anymore, just that I paid the guy 100.000 rupiah (€8,-) and went on my way, dazed and confused. When I got home Sutik & Caroline followed later, hearing about my terrible accident already at the intersection. They immediately washed my wounds and helped me into bed. Today I encounter my childish nature mentally as well as physically. I’m stuck with a black eye, some small injuries and one big 30 cm flesh burning knalpot (exhaust) wound. The funny thing was that I was thinking about the time when I would get ‘my’ knalpot wound because it is the most common wound in Indonesia, everybody has it and I thought it was the last thing of integration into the Indonesian society. Well I’d never expect it to be so big.

Discussing this topic of my childish nature, experiencing this accident, all remind me that you often think you know yourself but in reality your still miles away from understanding and connecting to your pure self and centre of your essence. It’s still hard to think that this experience has its own good reason and it’s a hard way to learn, but I actually didn’t expect anything else, I just forgot. Luckily (Sort of) I now have a physical reminder or two.

Yesterday I also talked about being alienated in a residency as part of the tension between cultures and the result it has on your work, process and perspective. At the moment I really feel alienated. I’m curious how this will affect my work, perspective and process, but for now I just want to rest. But I know myself and I will probably get on my bike today, drive really sow and safe and try to start some work. Because I will not let me get down by some bruises and burned flesh…all though it really look terrible but I hope it will vanish in the future.

I know it’s not a happy and some would say positive post/experience etc. but I try to see it that way. Life has changes, good ones and bad ones and every change is what makes life, life…. Feelings are what make us human and part of this wonderful experience we call life, so why not cherish the bad ones as well??

Au..

So it was a busy week, it always is…unfortunately my production says different. I have great difficulty in this culture to efficiently handle my time and to produce my artworks. The week started out with a big debate about me cancelling the workshop, which wasn’t really an option as later seemed. So I agreed to its vital part of this residency program and started to prepare hard to make it work…some how.

The next day I/we did the intro, still having difficulties with the translation part, and after that we did some grouping, brainstorming and scheduling for the photo shoots. I looked like a nice day at I/M/D except for the foreign language and translators. Yeah progress! The next day photo shoots and some extra time to arrange my visa extend, which really suck! People can tell you that extending your visa sucks, you can understand that it sucks but still when you extend your visa and your prepared it still sucks unbelievably hard!

After the fast and sucking visa extension program, which is still in progress, we (Me & Julia) went to eat something at a nice place called Suharti. Then some work related drop offs and off to the first photo shoots of this workshop/collaborative project. We started late, ended early or on time, which is quite weird for Indonesian standards, this made e happy and sad at the same time, I moved on. After that I started on some work prep. for a project, cutting acrylic boards. After some time and some trail and errors later I gave up and headed towards a good nights rest because I would have a photo shoot the next morning at 8:00!  Luckily the concepts were interesting and I looked foreword in doing the shoot. The time came, the coffee went and I ended up in the sawah at 8:00 in the morning to sunbath amongst all the working farmers. It was for me just as strange being there as well as for the farmers who had some half-naked bule guy besides them, being photographed while drinking beer and lotioning himself with Vaseline at 8:00 in the morning, yeah I know…weird indeed.

Off course drinking beer in the morning and sunbathing while other people around me work hard is just my thing and so I had a great time and start of my day! The photo shoot went well and I think the participants had a good feeling about their process and progress. And that is also a important part of the project process, process in the work and the process in the relation between each other.

The rest of the day worked out like any other Indonesian day, never as you expect but I am making great progression in my area of productivity! Instead of fixing the stuff myself I just except that other people can do it faster, better and more efficient, so I pay them. Paying the guy who is cutting my acrylics (Also the guy/artist, Pur, who is going to help me with a ceramic installation) paying the guy that’s going the fix my visa, paying everybody in a nutshell. But I see it as collaboration; another thread threw my residency, collaboration.

So know I will adapt to my environment and not be ashamed by other people helping me. This is for me a personal victory as well as an artistic one. I think this will have great impact on my future works and perspectives on art, for now I will just experience this new feeling and try to explore this as much as possible. Until the new emotional and life changing post!

Selamat Jalang!