Pnin did send the link. I owe him one. I blame myself for not having known about the existence of Bobby McFerrin before:
I’m addicted. Last week I gave it a try to kick the habit. Cold turkey, mind you. I did succeed to refrain from my addiction each and every minute of the last seven seven days. I managed to abstain from even one phone call. Yet, I’m not sure whether the cure was a great success. To be honest I don’t think I’m clear yet. I can still feel the urge. Desperately even. Next Monday I probably will give in to the temptation once more. The moment she will look at me when we enter the room, I will gladly fall again. After a week off, I will be full time co-nanny/play mate/slave again – together with my wife. Ah, it’s sweet being prisoner of her charm…Â Esha is our precious piece of art.
Speaking about art, the time out had it’s advantages anyhow. It provided us with extra leisure time. Time for ongoing exhibitions on Cezanne, Picasso, Mondriaan, Sally Man, Edward Hopper. In the context of which it was an extraordinary and happy coincidence that the other day this special exhibition called “Beyond the Dutch” started. It had pretty wide coverage in the media – for instance an article in the Jakarta Post at the other end of the world as well as an item in the news reel of Channel 2, Dutch public television.
Much ado about cultural heritage doesn’t necessarily mean real, authentic interest in the subject matter. Media hypes and an overheated public opinion about national pride which has been hurt by foreigners, often happens to coincide with a high level of ignorance as to one’s own country’s social-cultural history. Now museums ought to be the temples of culture, the cold stores of the historical highlights as well as the greenhouses of blossoming modern cultural developments. At least that is what one should hope they would be. However the number of visitors to Indonesian museums is minimal. There are the mandatory visits of students of course. But after graduation only very few people show up; in Jakarta (with an estimated total of about 10 million inhabitants and even some 25 million in greater Jakarta, Jabotabek) only 10.000 non-student visits in the Fine Arts Museum, the Ceramic Museum and the Maritime Museum taken together, are registered on a yearly basis. A very poor record by any means.
There are may be many reasons for this negligence by the general public. One them being the unattractiveness of the museums. And failure of their public relations. Lack of appealing artifacts, lack of tempting collections and lack of money also. Or perhaps the ex-students are just fed up with museums after the boring experiences they had during their involuntary visits. Whatever.
It can be done differently. Last month I met this entrepreneurial man of history, Adep ( short for Ade Purnama).  He was last month’s guest at Bonnie’s and Pelopor’s. We met at a “rijsttafel” – history must be fun!- and much to my own surprise last Tuesday I found myself visiting Bronbeek Museum in the company of Bonnie and him. The museum is dedicated to the history of the KNIL – the former colonial army in Indonesia- which I always thought appalling enough to avoid going there. But for Adep it meant just another interesting site where he could gather background information on colonial phenomena after similar visits to Middelburg, Delft, Leiden, Hoorn, Enhuizen Amsterdam etc.
The colonial past has been a heavyweight determining factor of the RI. Some years ago it came to this guy’s mind that most historical and cultural artifacts which are in one way or the other part of that history are not in but outside museums. A lot of them suffering from poor maintenance unfortunately, by the way. But one can best draw attention to them by using a simple form of entertaining. His brainwave can be labeled ‘plesiran tempo dulu’. In 2002 this notions resulted in Sahabat Museum – a museum community. A very peculiar museum which is also known as Batmus ( indeed Indonesians love acronyms), which is a special kind of open air museum made up by ‘journeys to the past’: organized day-trips for groups from one open air historical site to another open air cultural site ,while the guide provides information. Characteristically these trips have a theme, provide expertise on the subjects and imply drinks and food for the participants. While this started out in Jakarta, by the success of it Batmus also offers visits to other parts of the archipelago now, where striking remnants of the colonial past can be found. By and by Batmus has developed into a cultural travel organization.
I think Adep’s approach is for the benefit of historical and cultural awareness in Indonesia . One worthy of a lot of success.
The IFFR is over. The Tiger Awards went to “Be calm and count to seven“/Iran, Breathless/ South Korea and Wrong Rosary/Turkey. The audiences -nearly 350000 visits according to the organization- on the other hand overwhelmingly choose on the safe side; the winner of the KPN Audience Award has won four Golden Globes earlier and without doubt will be shining among the next Oscars: Slumdog Millionaire . The Indonesian movie “Jermal” ended 11th in this competition of 200.
We went to see “9808 An Anthology“. It had been reviewed a.o. here in December ’08 by Eric Sasono in Rumah Film and here in May 08 by Rizal Iwan in The Jakarta Post. Actually it’s a two hours’ patchwork, or rather a collage of short movies by directors reflecting on the actual, personal significance of the events which took place in Jakarta in May ’98. They, broadly speaking, cover the tragic, the romantic, and the political.