Melati Suryodarmo, Passionate Pilgrim
Melati Suryodarmo was born in 1969 in Surakarta, Indonesia. She lives and works since 1994 in Braunschweig, Germany. Graduate in International Relations and Political Sciences in Bandung, she started her study at the Hochschule für Bildende Künsten Braunschweig with Anzu Furukawa (Butoh and choreography), Mara Mattuschka (time based) and Marina Abramovic (performance art and Raum Konzept). She graduated in Fine Art and finished
her MFA in 2002 in Performance Art. Melati Suryodarmo has participated in various international performance festivals and
exhibitions including IPFO 2003, the 50th Venice Biennale, Marking the territory, IMMA Dublin, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam (during the exhibition of the life of Egon Schiele), Videobrasil Sao Paolo (2005), Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, 52th Venice Biennale
dance Festival (2007), KIASMA Helsinki (2007). She has recently presented her performance Alé lino for the Manifesta7, in Bolzano Italy (2008). Since the last two years, Suryodarmo has
been presenting her works in Indonesia and South East Asian countries.
www.melatisuryodarmo.com
Passionate Pilgrim is a durational performance in which Melati Suryodarmo was inspired by encounters during her journeys which confronted her to concern on identity issues, especially those which are related to her origin. She observed and translated the hidden emotion through a study of gestures, and the unspoken language. Passionate Pilgrim is the beginning of another journey.
Artistic statement:
The world that inspires me to move my thoughts is the world inside me. The body becomes like a home which functions as container of memories, living organism. The system inside the psychological body that changes all the time has enriched my idea to develop new structures of attitude and thoughts. I try to perceive my surroundings as the fact of the real presence of now, but considering the path of its history.
I try to understand the language that are not spoken, and opens the door of perceptions. I respect the freedom in our minds to perceive things coming through our individual sensory register system.
Crossing the boundaries of cultural and political encounters has been a challenge that stimulates me discovering new identification. An effort to find identity is yet a dangerous act of losing the ground of origin. For me, the process of making artwork is a life long research that never stops me to put myself inside the metamorphic constellation.
I intend to touch the fluid border between the body and its environment through my art works. I aim to create a concentrated level of intensity without the use of narrative structures. Talking about politics, society or psychology makes no sense to me if the nerves are not able to digest the information. I love it when a performance reaches a level of factual absurdity.