This article was authored by Otty Widasari as the curatorial introduction to Bangsal Menggawe 2019: “Museum Dongeng” (“Museum of Tales”). It was first published on the Pasirputih website on 23 February 2019, and was subsequently republished on the akumassa website within the Darivisual section.
Bodies in The Periodic Time of Low Tide
I was born from the mating of seas and shore. As the tide united them, I was stranded in a vast land, a substrate hooked to other substrates on the seashore.
My body grew and evolved, attuning to its environment. A hard, calcareous substrate helped me build up a shell, protecting my soft mollusc-like body from the heat of sunshine and predatory attacks. As I matured, my feet grew and their edges branched like phalanxes into fingers because life requires them. The bones formed a structure and enabled me to walk, as I really have to walk, and liven up this seashore.
Subsequently, this body occupied a site, a place where fate is staked with its friend – fortune. It adapted to nature and the long-standing knowledge of its environment. For centuries, this body has evolved, roamed and foraged, complying with every prevailing knowledge system. Particularly, this body recognised two such systems. One system demanded it to perform hereditary rites that have existed for so long and are considered good for this body, allowing it to live in mutual symbiosis with other bodies. This body adapted to forage with others, and to continually strive for betterment. When this system seemed resilient, it felt hard to change the pattern and to interact with the new bodies who came and went, and with those who came and settled.
The other system demanded that this body comply with signed and numbered mandatory rules, and interact within corridors strongly guarded by law. It produced definitions and homogeneity, bringing new goodness. This knowledge system helped the body to progress and to experience more things beyond anything the body had previously sensed.
But these two systems sometimes tire out the body, because they demand mechanical labour from organs that must continuously move to generate goodness. Sometimes the body needs only a bale-bale (a kind of bamboo hut) to lie around in, enjoying the breeze during hot noontime, while activating only one organ of which ability is just kept chattering: about the things it sees and experiences in life. Sometimes, that moment turns into a lengthy interpretation about the evolution of the body and its environment, presented through tales. This shiftless body only wishes to ruminate about the regular schedule of low and high tides, which come along with the turn of the crescent and full moon in the coastal boundary line. These regular tidal waves let this body exist.
However, this body can’t always serve these two systems, and sometimes it becomes a parasite. At times, it has been difficult to hook this body to systematised substrates, to be together with them to make life better. Eventually, this body strayed out in the outer side of the system, and wandered in and out of the system to survive, as well as to feed the living and ever-increasing children. Together with other, same-fated bodies, we have swarmed, told tales, and tried to be mutually-supporting substrates.
These stories helped us to survive during thirst and hunger when the low tide dried up the hot sand, in the periodic times of the crescent and full moon. We have waited for high tide to come to ease our search for food, while telling tales and stabilising sanity.
Sanity Stability
The structure of tradition, as ingrained in society, was created to preserve harmony. But it often binds the essence of human happiness. In society, especially one living communally, interests always creep in through the narrowest gap within the tight lines of tradition’s guardian. It is the same in the modern system, under the canon of government and in the context of the nation state. It cannot fulfil each member’s pursuit of happiness. Consequently, every individual must follow established rules. History is archived and used for tomorrow’s learning. These narrow gaps have always contained the opportunity for political interest to fool the faltering threshold between modern society and tradition.
Where can tales of sanity stability, which protect heads from sun-drenched noonday, exist? What can relieve the tremble within people’s chest from the nerve-wracking nights in the moments after earthquakes? Maybe these tales have also been archived in the braid wall of a bamboo cabin undestroyed by repetitious jolts. Perhaps they can be used later, in the rainy days, when the electricity cuts out and the cold and the dark might be able to soothe people’s addiction to disputes in social media.
The traditional structure operates alongside the modern system. They intersect each other, in mutual support as well as conflict. They complement each other, regulating people’s lives. Likewise, modern history and the tales held in people’s memories sit side by side, seizing their chances to fill people’s mind and thrill their hearts with the construction of surprises.
History is recorded in books, and taught in curricula that are never separated from power relations, whereas tales of people’s memories wander like parasites upon each systematised substrate that can help them survive.
Like organisms in the intertidal zone living between the boundary lines of the lowest and highest tide, people of Pemenang, who live in the reciprocal force fields of modern and traditional knowledge systems, have a distinctive character driven by the necessity of adapting to the effects of politics, power, media, and technological developments. Distortive tales of people’s memories are carefully nurtured . These guard people against the hard shocks that always happen, beyond their purpose to strive for the pursuit of happiness.
Bangsal Menggawe 2019: Museum of Tales
Occupies time throughout February 2019, Bangsal Menggawe: Museum of Tales was held in a situation of post-cataclysm after the earthquakes that occurred on Lombok Island last year. Realising that the self is part of a system, a society consisting of individuals has indeed been the weakest entity. If we imagine ourselves as humans on a location, the land on which we stand among the most vulnerable one in the world. Indonesia rests on the most active earthquake route in the world because it is surrounded by the Pacific Ring of Fire, and sits amid three continental plate collisions: Indo-Australia from the south, Eurasia from the north, and Pacific from the east. Even though this condition makes Indonesia fertile and rich in energy sources, the large number of victims and damage caused by the cataclysms that come repeatedly to several regions in Indonesia is still unavoidable.
Indeed, people hang their hope of salvation only on the big patronising building, the system of government. Isn’t it worrying when we see how this nation-state is under the aegis of a building unable to resolve the disunity perturbing its people? The reciprocal force between different interests, politics, technological developments, media and the cramped life necessities within many rules doesn’t bring equal goodness for all. In the bustle of movement to survive, sometimes people forget about things such as tales able to keep our sanity stable while continuously dissolving in the tidal wave that takes us somewhere.
Bangsal Cup, the football tournament that has existed since 2016, is held again, this time highlighting players under the age of 13 years. Also, there is the already growing Rudat dance, with its movement to promote Rudat as a way to exercise in many circles of society. A small public TV cable business that collapsed in the earthquakes has been re-activated with a more non-commercial agenda, broadcasting programs made by common people. Isin Angsat Theatre presents various performances that explore the concept of spec-actor-ship (spectatorship and actor-ship) in private, semi-public and public spaces. All of these activities will echo together at the Bangsal Port on March 2, 2019. A large trumpet will be blown, calling all people of the Pemenang City to come to Bangsal Harbor and menggawe (‘celebrate’) together.
Based on the notion that increasing people’s dignity might be done by activating their daily awareness, the 3rd Bangsal Menggawe, which was delayed by last year’s earthquakes, is again held. It aims to activate the self by constructing the awareness that even the smallest act in everyday life is a meaningful matter within a system that is built through relations of power. Bangsal Menggawe: Museum of Tales frames everything wandering around the outer side of the system, where there is no corridor but there are rules through which we can look after each other. It invites people to hold hands at the Bangsal Harbor and pray together for the strength of heart to deal with the weak walls of the modern system when it is confronted by cataclysm. ***
Author Biography
