Essay for art exhibition catalogue to accompany “Behind the Eye” the solo show by artist Khadir Supartini. Prolific and inventive painting, sculpture, installation and mixed media pieces—including a kinetic sculpture erection and glow-in-the-dark paint on canvas—evoke a jaded bacchannale. Presented at Taman Budaya Yogyakarta, June-July 2023.
During 1930s fieldwork in Bali, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead commissioned over 1200 artworks by 80-plus artists in and around Batuan based on folklore, dreams, and daily life. These commissions helped catalyze a regional painting style. Batuan: Interactive is a web documentary produced by Elemental Productions presenting these paintings and their legacy in a multi-modal format amplifying voices of Balinese artists and underscoring the paintings’ connection to Balinese lived experience. Users navigate: a virtual exhibit, interviews with multiple generations of painters, ethnographic and curatorial analyses, a visual ethnography of the rituals and healing traditions depicted in the paintings as carried out today, and more.
Writer
Popular anthropology article sharing the stories of two Indonesian teens on the autism spectrum and introducing the newly released ethnographic films made about them. Groundbreaking organizations, trailblazing families, cultural translators, and locally sensitive, syncretic solutions are making a difference for spectrum youth and their families.
On Mead, Bateson, and the Legacy of Batuan Painting is a documentary made for inclusion in the exhibit “Bali: Power and Agency in Southeast Asian Art” on view at the Pacific Asian Museum from March-June 2022.
The documentary features interviews with three generations of Balinese painters from Batuan. These provide a deeper understanding of how changes in subject matter, materials, and techniques that began in the 1930’s during the time of Mead and Bateson’s fieldwork have had a lasting impact on the regional style.
Writer
Progressive Impotence for a Global #MeToo.
Discusses the depiction of rape in Indonesian literature and the paradoxical promise of a protesting penis in Eka Kurniawan's novel Vengeance is Mine.
Tajen: Interactive is a web documentary made by visual anthropologists designed to complement Clifford Geertz's seminal 1972 piece, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" with contemporary visual ethnography that takes the study of the cockfight into the 21st century.
The documentary explores multiple cultural, historical, and psychological aspects of Balinese cockfighting--from ritual lore to gender identity to inter-species relationships.
Writing credits: Scripts, Articles, and Discussion Guide
Puthut EA is a contemporary fiction writer from Indonesia known for his culinary proclivities, and what could be considered Indonesian “comfort foods” feature prominently in his stories. However, he often establishes the familiar meanings and associations of such foods only to subvert them to address incidences of coercion, brutality, and erasure that call into question Indonesian familial, cultural, and national values, identities, and practices. My chapter analyzes the symbolism and narrative impact of three different comfort foods—a spicy dish known as sambal, fried rice, and stewed papaya leaves—in three different short stories to demonstrate how the author imbues these foods with a kind of “culinary conscience,” forcing characters to confront truths that are hard to swallow while asking readers what happens when daily staples of identity become haunted by painful memories: Can cherished and familiar dishes still provide solace and sustenance, or do they now only leave a bitter taste in the mouth? The discussion addresses the relevance of the “comfort food” concept in a comparative global perspective by applying it to Indonesian food culture and its depiction in literature.
There may be as many as one million people with autism in Indonesia, and a small but growing number of activists and educators are seeking to raise awareness and provide families with access to education and treatment. From the perspective of many there is a “lack” of understanding about autism in Indonesia they seek to remediate as they introduce medicalized vocabularies, intervention methods, and paradigms of healthy development quite unfamiliar to local communities.
Based on a year and a half of ethnographic fieldwork in Yogyakarta and Jakarta, my chapter instead suggests that while the concept of “autism” remains comparatively new, there are operant models of developmental difference in Javanese Indonesia, and a repertory of available responses, including alternative treatments for developmental disability. Meanwhile, folk models of healthy child development, developmental difference, normative sociality, and inclusive communities all influence family and community response to a person with autism. I discuss how local and globalized autism response might complement or clash with one another and document the interpretive work that must be done to turn “autism” into a useful concept for Indonesian families and communities. I identify meaningful and culturally specific embodied practices of inclusion, presenting the work of a Yogyakarta gamelan group that uses traditional music towards individually and socially therapeutic ends.
Nyoman Kereta has struggled with the intrusion of spirits into his consciousness for the past 40 years. His experiences skirt the borders of cultural and spiritual norms, simultaneously manifesting and exceeding Balinese beliefs about the supernatural world and the possibilities for human interaction with it.
With a complete documentary film, ethnography, and multi-media interactive study guide contained in one package, this immersive ebook is anthropology for the 21st century. It provides students and educators with an innovative and updated way to explore key topics in psychological anthropology, raising fascinating questions about culture, personal experience, mental illness, and trauma.
The Society for Psychological Anthropology says this package “set[s] a new education standard for visual, psychological and medical anthropology, specifically, and pedagogical resources in the anthropological field at large.”
Elemental Productions is a Los-Angeles based ethnographic documentary film company dedicated to the production of films focusing on the relationship between culture, psychology, and personal experience. Elemental Productions was founded in 2007 by anthropologist Robert Lemelson and evolved out of years of fieldwork and thousands of hours of footage gathered in Indonesia since 1997.
Elemental has cut twelve films on Indonesia, covering diverse topics such as funerary ritual, folk performance and spirit possession, polygamy and gender based violence, culture and mental illness, and the long-term psychological impact of the mass killings of 1965. Each comes with a study guide designed to expand upon material covered in the film and facilitate the exploration of its themes and ideas.
Exhibition brochure essay for “Dilemma,” the second solo show of emerging Indonesian artist Khadir Supartini. Discusses aesthetic developments in depicting the figurative human body and moody noir elements in the artworks. Published by Rumah Seni Arjuna, October 2012.
Review of a contemporary art exhibit by a promising young Indonesian painter, addressing issues of culture, experience, and identity.
Introductory essay for art exhibition catalogue. The solo show “Imitation Journey” introduced the work of emerging Indonesian artist Khadir Supartini. Painting, sculpture installation, and mixed media pieces explored themes of mirage, effigy, and identification to evoke the artist’s conflicts and longings growing up in a troubled family. Published by Tujuh Bintang Art Space, April 2012.
© 2018 Annie Tucker. All rights reserved.
