Project Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan
Sweet Dreams Sweet will be performed on 5 and 6 October, at 12.15pm, lasting for 3 hours.
Through concentrated, repetitive actions performed over a long time, Melati Suryodarmo sharply brings to light contemporary relationships between society and the body. Suryodarmo regards the body as a vessel for memories and emotions. Her work is always based on her own experiences, including her roots in Indonesia and the education she received there as well as the twenty years she spent in Germany where she began her career as an artist. The unique and pertinent work of this performance artist is presented through both a performance and exhibition.
Sweet Dreams Sweet is a performance by twenty-eight women who live in the area where the work is performed. Dressed in matching white outfits, the women dip their feet in buckets of water, which gradually stain their stockings blue. The women move slowly, their faces and expressions hidden behind veils, indistinguishable. The work suggests the suppressed individuality of these women, alluding to the pressures of conformity that exist in Indonesian society and other parts of the world.
The exhibition “TIDAK APA-APA” meaning “It doesn’t matter. It’s OK. Don’t worry.” in Indonesian consists of two video works. Her most representative work, Exergie – Butter Dance, has been performed in countless venues since 2000. Dressed in a tight dress and high heels, Suryodarmo dances on a block of butter set up like a podium. Her feet slip in the melting butter, forcing her repeatedly to stop and start again. In this exhibition, archive video recordings of the performance from different times are arranged as a single installation.
Timoribus means “fear” in Latin. Referencing performance art practices of the 1960s and ’70s, this video installation features young people performing a number of violent sequences that gradually begin to overlap and influence each other. In an age of social media content overload, what desires are revealed by these videos?
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