View the 360 exhibition in https://galnasonline.id/partisan/galeri-360 Otty Widasari started from the realization that the media is an important key in reading how civilization works. The development of media technology affects how narratives are created, shaped, communicated, and aestheticized for citizens. The control of the narrative by the regime, conglomerates, and oligarchs, is treated as a narrative mouthpiece that has been selected according to the interests of its ideology and capital. However, media technology brings optimism that opens up the possibility of inclusiveness and vernacularity of the media: the unification of recording and projection/presentation devices and the various possibilities of their distribution via the internet. This new chapter in media history has turned people who previously consumed them into producers. The gatekeepers of their knowledge collapsed, citizens were free from historical and technological references to these devices. The turning point of Otty Widasari’s artistic practice and activism can be seen since the founding of Forum Lenteng, and the project she has led and worked on until now, Akumassa. As a study group that departs from studying socio-cultural issues in society through the development of art and media, Forum Lenteng intends Akumassa to be a further dissemination stage of its studies as well as to expand its network. Akumassa departs from community empowerment programs through the media in various locations in Indonesia. Starting from the situation with the media, Akumassa makes the narration of residents as genius voices for a location where they live, activating their agency to talk about everyday problems that come from systemic problems to the long history of a location. The way it works is guided by the egalitarian production, archiving and distribution of knowledge, independent of the power of the media and the established system. Akumassa seems to be a method and framework for Otty to be able to uncover the stuttering of major discourses such as modernism in practice on sites that are reluctant to be read by the monolithic views of the mainstream media. Otty further finds that the serious and monumental realms of public discourse such as colonialism and narratives about the economic game at the center can move from academic discussions to conversations between citizens by jointly orchestrating bodies, both on location, and bodies on social media, with knowledge through framing. This becomes Otty’s attempt to position history and knowledge as a relentless contestation of the claims of human agency that shapes civilization. Otty managed to seize it through her research methodology and artistic execution, which is rooted in the way of knowing history today and here. Solo Exhibition Otty Widasari – Partisan tries to re-examine the idea of media awareness and how its performativity aspect can be managed into a collective action in framing, magnifying, and distributing knowledge inclusively. The study space which was initiated by Otty and her friends became an artistic laboratory for him in recognizing how big narratives work for individuals who are close to their daily lives and the public who are situated in today’s media technology. It is these networked individuals who become partisans, exchanging knowledge and affection with Otty, to realize what is happening today and here. The partisans who have and will contribute offer a performative reading of today’s world on the ‘performance work in progress’ initiated by Otty for this exhibition. This third solo exhibition is the conclusion of the two previous solo exhibition projects: “Ones Who Looked at the Presence” (2015) and “Ones Who Are Being Controlled” (2016), both of which were curated by Manshur Zikri. In a previous project, Otty dissects how the arrival of new media technology brought by the colonials evokes the subject’s gesture towards the camera, and then how directing works between the recording and the recorded subjects. Through painting in his previous project, Otty put colonial film archives into the landscape of the media situation today and here. Solo Exhibition Otty Widasari – Partisans try to conceptually frame Otty Widasari’s works to dissect the layers of media for almost two decades. Based on her drawing practices; knowledge facilitation; and the daily chats, video works; text; and the performance presented at Otty’s solo exhibition this time is an offer for the public to reflect on daily life, friendship networks, and the empowerment of citizens who are equipped with today’s media technology, which has the potential to find out and unravel the things that actually happen behind monolithic narratives. Solo Exhibition Otty Widasari – Partisan, opened on March 8, 2022, at 18.30–21.00 WIB at the Multipurpose Building, National Gallery of Indonesia (invitation only) and took place on March 9–April 8 2022, 10:00–19.00 WIB (Divided into several session). In the opening, Forum Lenteng launched the book “Partisan: Texts on Otty WIdasari” which examines the reflections of young writers who intersect with the artistic practice and activism of Otty Widasari. Performance Art presentation on Otty Widasari’s work in progress at the Otty Widasari Solo Exhibition – Partisan, held from 9 to 15 March 2022 and bore 24 performance works. In one day, there were 3 to 5 performance sessions from performance artists from several locations in Indonesia. The artists presented included Ferial Afiff (Bandung), Proyek Edisi (Yogyakarta), and the 69 Performance Club (Jakarta) and the Milisifilem Collective (Jakarta). This exhibition was held with the support and cooperation of the National Gallery of Indonesia, Forum Lenteng, Milisifilem Collective, Collective Project Edition, 69 Performance Club, Milisifilem Collective and Ferial Afiff. Year Jakarta, Indonesia
2022
Solo Exhibition Otty Widasari – PARTISAN
