The Netherlands and Indonesia are inextricably
connected because of their history. Many Dutch people and Indonesians
still have personal memories of the direct links with the colonial society
that the Netherlands imposed on Indonesia. The video installation Connections
is about the visible and hidden relations between the two countries, the
personal and more universal similarities and differences.
Karel Doing (Rotterdam) and Lulu Ratna (Jakarta) collected footage on
their regular train journeys. Trains and stations are a sort of democratic
gathering of city-dwellers. Here people get together with a shared goal,
but individual interests. These are the marketplaces of coming and going,
selling the gratification of ones desire to elsewhere, platform for wanted
and unwanted meetings, crossroad of crossroads.
The artists also started a list of shared words in both languages (Dutch,
Bahassa Indonesia). These words are an example of the painful and at
the same time colourful way both cultures influenced each-other.
Tanja Elstgeest |
