(Highlights) FX HARSONO

FX Harsono, one of Indonesia’s most revered contemporary artists, has been a central figure of the Indonesian art scene for over 40 years. In 1975, he was among a group of young artists who founded Indonesia’s Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement), which emphasized an experimental, conceptual approach, the use of everyday materials, and engagement with social and political issues. Over the course of recent decades that have seen enormous transformations in Indonesia, Harsono has continuously explored the role of the artist in society, in particular his relationship to history. During Indonesia’s dictatorial Suharto regime (1967-98), his installation and performance works were powerfully eloquent acts of protest against an oppressive state apparatus. The fall of the regime in 1998, which triggered rioting and widespread violence, mainly against Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority, prompted an introspective turn in Harsono’s artistic practice. He embarked on an ongoing investigation of his own family history and the position of minorities in society, especially his own Chinese-Indonesian community. The recovery of buried or repressed histories, cultures, and identities – and the part that the artist can play in this process – have remained a significant preoccupation. Through looking into his own past, Harsono has touched on concerns that resonate globally, foregrounding fundamental issues that are central to the formation of group and personal identities in our rapidly changing world.

Courtesy of the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

And then I think after the fall of Suharto in 1998, art historians and commentators have said that your body of works began to turn inward, and your portrait of yourself began to make an appearance in your works, for example, in My Body as a Field (2002) and Open Your Mouth (2001). What led to your turn inwards and your examining of your personal history as a Chinese minority in Indonesia? 

FX HARSONO

After 1998, the political situation changed totally. We called it Reformasi (reformation). The culture also changed. A lot of things changed. During the New Order of Suharto, we only had 4 TV stations. One was government-controlled, and the other three were controlled by Suharto and his sons and daughters. After 1998, suddenly a lot more TV stations were developed, so people had more freedom to speak, and to criticise the government. The media or news can do so. I made a work about the transition, called Open Your Mouth. Everyone can speak, why won’t you open your mouth, but I realised that even with the freedom to speak, and lots of people are criticising the government, but the talk and criticism is no good, it had no value. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Is that why all the mouths in the work are all white spaces? 

HARSONO

It means there is no content in the speech.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Maybe they don’t even know what to say?

HARSONO

Yes. Blank Spot on my TV (2003) is another work I made. Every evening when I came back from the office, I saw the news on TV. Very interesting, and everybody can criticise, so I documented what’s on TV with my camera. I selected some and presented it as an artwork. I placed the photograph of the TV as a white spot on the TV, so that it looked as if all the activists have disappeared.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

It was also at this time that you came across some of the photographs your father took of the victims of...

HARSONO

That’s later. 2009. Before that, I started to question myself. What do I want to do now that the situation has changed so much that people have the freedom to criticise the government? 

During this time, I realised that I’m Chinese and a minority in Indonesia, and have experienced a lot of discrimination. I’ve been focussing so much on the government and its acts of suppression, but I’ve personally experienced a lot of discrimination, so I felt that I wanted to talk about being Chinese. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

You have a Chinese name?

HARSONO

When I was 18 years old in 1996, I had to choose between being an Indonesian citizen or being a Chinese citizen. In Indonesia, a baby born Chinese isn’t automatically Indonesian. When he or she reaches 18, he or she has to choose. When I chose Indonesian citizenship, the new rule after 1965 was that you had to choose an Indonesian name. Prior to 1998, the school was prohibited from teaching Chinese as a language. Chinese people couldn’t practice Chinese rituals or culture. This changed completely in 1998. Schools could teach Mandarin. Chinese New Year became a holiday and Chinese people could celebrate it. They could go to the temple to pray. I realised I had a prior Chinese name. I started to learn again how to write my Chinese name and I made a performance using my Chinese name. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What is that name? 

HARSONO

Ho Fong Wen (in Mandarin).  Or Oh Hong Bun (in Hokkien). I changed it to Harsono. FX stands for Francis Xavier.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Do you know what your Chinese name means? 

HARSONO

Fong means harvest. Wen means literature. So it means harvest of arts, culture and literature. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

So you were always meant to be in the arts. 

HARSONO

(laughing) Yes, it does look like I was born to be an artist. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Writing in the Rain (2012) then becomes a very powerful work, because there you are consistently continuously writing your name in Chinese using black ink. And then it all gets away by rain. What was in your mind when you were performing that work? 

HARSONO

I want to say I have a Chinese name, and I want to show that in the video performance. I write it again and again. But the rain comes and washes all the text away from the glass. It means for me that even though I have a Chinese name, for 32 years I used my new name. People know me as Harsono. I exist as Harsono. I’m thinking my Chinese name is unnecessary and not remembered.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What’s interesting for me experiencing watching the video of Writing in the Rain and then encountering a different work of yours Pilgrimage into History (2013) where you made rubbings of Chinese names from a mass gravesite. There’s a congruence between the two works. They echo each other, and it’s a troubling echo, a sad one. This rewriting of the names is something you keep coming back to. Different works you’ve produced have this aspect of the writing of the Chinese names. What draws you to this, that you keep coming back to it again and again?

HARSONO

The work you mention Pilgrimage to History is a textile rubbing from Chinese characters engraved on tombstones. The work started from my research into the massacre of Chinese people during the 1960s. I started this research because of my father’s photographs. He started to make documentation about the killings of the Chinese people in my hometown. I also visited some mass graves in other places, and when I saw them, there were tombstones which had Chinese names of the people who were buried in these mass graves. I thought about how I could make a work from this. I could take a photograph, but somehow it’s just a photograph. I wanted something that was part of this mass grave. It then occurred to me I could make a textile rubbing, it would be a trace of the original, and it would be part of the gravestone. When I started making the rubbings, I realised it was also my pilgrimage. It’s the way I make a pilgrimage to the victims. So I made a documentation of my performance and also as part of my journey of pilgrimage. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

So, the writing of your personal name becomes part of the collective identity of being Chinese Indonesian, and in the larger fabric of Indonesia, it’s very much tied to this erasure by the Indonesian Government of the Chinese identity.

HARSONO

Yes. If someone has a baby and gives it a name, it’s not just a name, it’s a hope and a prayer from the parent to the baby. A name is a prayer – the parent is saying I hope that you will become a good person, or a rich person, or a wise person. So when the government forces a person to change his or her name, it’s erasing this hope and prayer of the parents, and replacing it with a new hope and prayer. A hope from the government, not the parent. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I like that. A beautiful way to say it. That your name is a prayer. So how does it feel then to have your work shown in Times Square NY on a major digital billboard where you’re writing your name in front of all these New York lights and glamour?

HARSONO

I was fairly shocked at the time. It’s amazing. Suddenly my video wasn’t showing on just one LED panel, but on sixteen panels. The feeling was amazing, very heavy for me. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What has been the reaction, or the reception, that’s filtered back to you?

HARSONO

On social media, lots of people have said it’s amazing. 

Voice of America, in my interview with them, also said I’m the only Indonesian artist who has shown this work on Times Square. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I want to recircle back to our theme of education, since this is an educational initiative at The Creative Process. I want to talk about the role of art in education. I understand that you’re a teacher as well. How do you see the future of art in education? How can we incorporate art in education, in a way that isn’t stratified or top down?

HARSONO

If someone understands art, the effect is not just concerning the art, it’s a feeling. The mental and the ethical aspects become more cultured, and more socially aware. Art as education provides a way to help us respect others, respect their culture, their humanity. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

It connects us to the human condition, doesn’t it? It’s a universal thing and it’s democratic.

HARSONO

Yes. Indonesia is very diverse, and it’s very important that people understand it’s not a monoculture but a multi culture. We meet and interact with a lot of the other ethnicities and we know that they have a different language and culture. We must respect this. Art is very important for educating, not how to become an artist, but how to understand and learn about others. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Thank you so much, Pak FX, for your time and your body of work as a witness to multiple decades of Indonesian history. Your work is a monument to not forgetting the sacrifices of people and victims in the past. 

HARSONO

My pleasure. 

Photo courtesy of Sullivan + Strumpf and the artist

FX HARSONO

FX Harsono, one of Indonesia’s most revered contemporary artists, has been a central figure of the Indonesian art scene for over 40 years. In 1975, he was among a group of young artists who founded Indonesia’s Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement), which emphasized an experimental, conceptual approach, the use of everyday materials, and engagement with social and political issues. Over the course of recent decades that have seen enormous transformations in Indonesia, Harsono has continuously explored the role of the artist in society, in particular his relationship to history. During Indonesia’s dictatorial Suharto regime (1967-98), his installation and performance works were powerfully eloquent acts of protest against an oppressive state apparatus. The fall of the regime in 1998, which triggered rioting and widespread violence, mainly against Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority, prompted an introspective turn in Harsono’s artistic practice. He embarked on an ongoing investigation of his own family history and the position of minorities in society, especially his own Chinese-Indonesian community. The recovery of buried or repressed histories, cultures, and identities – and the part that the artist can play in this process – have remained a significant preoccupation. Through looking into his own past, Harsono has touched on concerns that resonate globally, foregrounding fundamental issues that are central to the formation of group and personal identities in our rapidly changing world.

Courtesy of the artist and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

And then I think after the fall of Suharto in 1998, art historians and commentators have said that your body of works began to turn inward, and your portrait of yourself began to make an appearance in your works, for example, in My Body as a Field (2002) and Open Your Mouth (2001). What led to your turn inwards and your examining of your personal history as a Chinese minority in Indonesia? 

FX HARSONO

After 1998, the political situation changed totally. We called it Reformasi (reformation). The culture also changed. A lot of things changed. During the New Order of Suharto, we only had 4 TV stations. One was government-controlled, and the other three were controlled by Suharto and his sons and daughters. After 1998, suddenly a lot more TV stations were developed, so people had more freedom to speak, and to criticise the government. The media or news can do so. I made a work about the transition, called Open Your Mouth. Everyone can speak, why won’t you open your mouth, but I realised that even with the freedom to speak, and lots of people are criticising the government, but the talk and criticism is no good, it had no value. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Is that why all the mouths in the work are all white spaces? 

HARSONO

It means there is no content in the speech.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Maybe they don’t even know what to say?

HARSONO

Yes. Blank Spot on my TV (2003) is another work I made. Every evening when I came back from the office, I saw the news on TV. Very interesting, and everybody can criticise, so I documented what’s on TV with my camera. I selected some and presented it as an artwork. I placed the photograph of the TV as a white spot on the TV, so that it looked as if all the activists have disappeared.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

It was also at this time that you came across some of the photographs your father took of the victims of...

HARSONO

That’s later. 2009. Before that, I started to question myself. What do I want to do now that the situation has changed so much that people have the freedom to criticise the government? 

During this time, I realised that I’m Chinese and a minority in Indonesia, and have experienced a lot of discrimination. I’ve been focussing so much on the government and its acts of suppression, but I’ve personally experienced a lot of discrimination, so I felt that I wanted to talk about being Chinese. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

You have a Chinese name?

HARSONO

When I was 18 years old in 1996, I had to choose between being an Indonesian citizen or being a Chinese citizen. In Indonesia, a baby born Chinese isn’t automatically Indonesian. When he or she reaches 18, he or she has to choose. When I chose Indonesian citizenship, the new rule after 1965 was that you had to choose an Indonesian name. Prior to 1998, the school was prohibited from teaching Chinese as a language. Chinese people couldn’t practice Chinese rituals or culture. This changed completely in 1998. Schools could teach Mandarin. Chinese New Year became a holiday and Chinese people could celebrate it. They could go to the temple to pray. I realised I had a prior Chinese name. I started to learn again how to write my Chinese name and I made a performance using my Chinese name. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What is that name? 

HARSONO

Ho Fong Wen (in Mandarin).  Or Oh Hong Bun (in Hokkien). I changed it to Harsono. FX stands for Francis Xavier.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Do you know what your Chinese name means? 

HARSONO

Fong means harvest. Wen means literature. So it means harvest of arts, culture and literature. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

So you were always meant to be in the arts. 

HARSONO

(laughing) Yes, it does look like I was born to be an artist. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Writing in the Rain (2012) then becomes a very powerful work, because there you are consistently continuously writing your name in Chinese using black ink. And then it all gets away by rain. What was in your mind when you were performing that work? 

HARSONO

I want to say I have a Chinese name, and I want to show that in the video performance. I write it again and again. But the rain comes and washes all the text away from the glass. It means for me that even though I have a Chinese name, for 32 years I used my new name. People know me as Harsono. I exist as Harsono. I’m thinking my Chinese name is unnecessary and not remembered.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What’s interesting for me experiencing watching the video of Writing in the Rain and then encountering a different work of yours Pilgrimage into History (2013) where you made rubbings of Chinese names from a mass gravesite. There’s a congruence between the two works. They echo each other, and it’s a troubling echo, a sad one. This rewriting of the names is something you keep coming back to. Different works you’ve produced have this aspect of the writing of the Chinese names. What draws you to this, that you keep coming back to it again and again?

HARSONO

The work you mention Pilgrimage to History is a textile rubbing from Chinese characters engraved on tombstones. The work started from my research into the massacre of Chinese people during the 1960s. I started this research because of my father’s photographs. He started to make documentation about the killings of the Chinese people in my hometown. I also visited some mass graves in other places, and when I saw them, there were tombstones which had Chinese names of the people who were buried in these mass graves. I thought about how I could make a work from this. I could take a photograph, but somehow it’s just a photograph. I wanted something that was part of this mass grave. It then occurred to me I could make a textile rubbing, it would be a trace of the original, and it would be part of the gravestone. When I started making the rubbings, I realised it was also my pilgrimage. It’s the way I make a pilgrimage to the victims. So I made a documentation of my performance and also as part of my journey of pilgrimage. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

So, the writing of your personal name becomes part of the collective identity of being Chinese Indonesian, and in the larger fabric of Indonesia, it’s very much tied to this erasure by the Indonesian Government of the Chinese identity.

HARSONO

Yes. If someone has a baby and gives it a name, it’s not just a name, it’s a hope and a prayer from the parent to the baby. A name is a prayer – the parent is saying I hope that you will become a good person, or a rich person, or a wise person. So when the government forces a person to change his or her name, it’s erasing this hope and prayer of the parents, and replacing it with a new hope and prayer. A hope from the government, not the parent. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I like that. A beautiful way to say it. That your name is a prayer. So how does it feel then to have your work shown in Times Square NY on a major digital billboard where you’re writing your name in front of all these New York lights and glamour?

HARSONO

I was fairly shocked at the time. It’s amazing. Suddenly my video wasn’t showing on just one LED panel, but on sixteen panels. The feeling was amazing, very heavy for me. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What has been the reaction, or the reception, that’s filtered back to you?

HARSONO

On social media, lots of people have said it’s amazing. 

Voice of America, in my interview with them, also said I’m the only Indonesian artist who has shown this work on Times Square. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I want to recircle back to our theme of education, since this is an educational initiative at The Creative Process. I want to talk about the role of art in education. I understand that you’re a teacher as well. How do you see the future of art in education? How can we incorporate art in education, in a way that isn’t stratified or top down?

HARSONO

If someone understands art, the effect is not just concerning the art, it’s a feeling. The mental and the ethical aspects become more cultured, and more socially aware. Art as education provides a way to help us respect others, respect their culture, their humanity. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

It connects us to the human condition, doesn’t it? It’s a universal thing and it’s democratic.

HARSONO

Yes. Indonesia is very diverse, and it’s very important that people understand it’s not a monoculture but a multi culture. We meet and interact with a lot of the other ethnicities and we know that they have a different language and culture. We must respect this. Art is very important for educating, not how to become an artist, but how to understand and learn about others. 

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Thank you so much, Pak FX, for your time and your body of work as a witness to multiple decades of Indonesian history. Your work is a monument to not forgetting the sacrifices of people and victims in the past. 

HARSONO

My pleasure. 

Photo courtesy of Sullivan + Strumpf and the artist

(Highlights) DR. FARHANA SULTANA

Dr. Farhana Sultana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, where she is also the Research Director for Environmental Collaboration and Conflicts at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC).

Dr. Sultana is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, water governance, post‐colonial development, social and environmental justice, climate change, and feminism. Her research and scholar-activism draw from her experiences of having lived and worked on three continents as well as from her backgrounds in the natural sciences, social sciences, and policy experience.

Prior to joining Syracuse, she taught at King’s College London and worked at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Author of several dozen publications, her recent books are “The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles” (2012), “Eating, Drinking: Surviving” (2016) and “Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water” (2020). Dr. Sultana graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University (in Geosciences and Environmental Studies) and obtained her Masters and PhD (in Geography) from the University of Minnesota, where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

She was awarded the Glenda Laws Award from the American Association of Geographers for “outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues” in 2019.

DR. FARHANA SULTANA

We are always students. We are students of the earth. We need to do better and we can do better because the capacity of the human spirit is quite expansive and we owe it to future generations to do the best we can do while we can…It’s about who is at the table or rather what is the table, meaning what are the terms of the debate. Setting the terms of the debate, but how do we even know what the terms of the debate are, who is being included, who is being heeded, and part of that is, therefore, a decolonizing of knowledge and power structures because it’s centrally or fundamentally a justice issue.

One of the issues is that, yes, it is harder to be a woman of color in any field, but it is harder to be a very outspoken vocal woman of color. That has been my reality because I don’t think silence is an option. Too many centuries of my people were silenced in various ways, and if I have the privilege of education and voice it is an absolute unending responsibility to therefore speak out and share my knowledge and expertise.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Mariana Monahan Negron with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Mariana Monahan Negron. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).