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11/08/2004: "Heaven is a place..."
Had I known this blog business would be so difficult I would have stuck to the studio and carried on with everything in silence. To go on with them as planned I realise that I face the risk of shutting down doors we managed to open with effort. Friends I have made, citizens of the enclave, whose confidence I went out of my way to gain and without whose engagement and enthusiasm the art forum would never have taken-off may feel slighted by my portrayal of things. On the other hand what would be the point of wasting your time with the setting up of an artists’ association if there had been nothing to it? [In the world that you and I are accustomed to, artists meet, they strike up a friendship, write a manifesto and find the legal advice to set things up and get to work… end of story.]
Here in the enclave things are not as straightforward and our venture is about creating the conditions for sharing experiences and ideas in a place where it was not immediately obvious that it could be of benefit to any of us (quite the opposite), it is about struggling for the possibility to learn from one another and if we decide to remain silent for fear of hurting feelings we will achieve nothing worthwhile. There is much I would like to share with you, things that would probably make this a much more enjoyable read [there’s some amazing stuff happening on the side-lines], but I won’t. In my description of the enclave I will try as best as I can to stick to the facts and keep aside all the feelings that tend to manoeuvre my thoughts this way and that.
While pondering on these thoughts and debating with myself how best to proceed I came upon this saying attributed to the sufi teacher Ajmal of Badakhshan:
There are three ways of presenting anything:
the first is to present everything;
the second is to present what people want;
the third is to present what will serve them best.
If you present everything, the result may be surfeit.
If you present what people want, it may choke them.
If you present what will serve them best, the worst is that, misunderstanding, they may oppose you. But if you have served them thus, whatever the appearances, you have served them and you, too, must benefit, whatever the appearances.
So here goes.
[oil on canvas by Haji Padzil bin Haji Ahmad]
Imagine a far-away land so fabulously rich that it’s people could [if they so decided] dedicate their entire lives to the fulfilment of their dreams. Education and healthcare are guaranteed as is a job in government administration or in the multinational corporations operating here [a quota for citizens of the enclave is part of the deal] - unemployment is unheard of and workers from all around the world flock here for the wages, tax-free and amongst the highest in South East Asia. Businesses [certain types of businesses, run mostly by foreigners holding a 49% share] thrive. Surprisingly, or not, the crime rate is low and terrorism a threat to be cautious of [as everywhere else in the world these days] but not overly worried about. Housing is luxurious yet affordable. If you happen to have citizenship chances are you pay a symbolic rent to the government for a more than decent house. Indeed as a yellow Identity card holder [citizen of the enclave] you are entitled to a vast array of benefits, an all time favourite being the possibility to accumulate loans - plural and simultaneous - from several banking institutions so as to possess today what your salary can only afford tomorrow [the banks don’t seem to worry, there is no central controlling agency but chances are high that the sultan will honour his subjects’ debts]. This could go on forever: gasoline is cheaper than water, motorways take you everywhere [even into the thickest jungle where they sometimes mysteriously end!], supermarket shelves carry everything you can wish for as long as it is halal…
Prohibition and the ban on dancing and other diversions aside is this not a reasonable description of paradise? [Surely you didn’t think all this didn’t come at a price!] Add to this the surroundings in which it all takes place and heaven takes on a whole new dimension. Until not so long ago Borneo was one of the largest expanses of tropical rainforest second only to the Amazon and the good news is that the enclave seems to be honest in its determination to preserve what is left of it within its borders as long as the natural gas and oil continues to flow [meaning to say – and this is the scary news - that less than 1/1000th of the island is temporarily protected!].
And yet, and yet…
Fantastic tales of the enclave’s ruling family aside I found very little information about the place itself to prepare me for what I was to find and what I read about Malaysia and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) was of no relevance. It is in many ways quite unreal: an idea of greatness from the past projecting a new image of itself outrageously into the future [fuelled by billions of petrodollars] but where the present, with its roots in tradition and its mind on the possibilities it could bring about, is strangely lacking. Every day you are left with the awkward sensation of being suspended in limbo and that old Talking Head’s song ‘Heaven’ sums things up better than anything I found in books, the lyrics and the music capture the paradox and the tension: it is a place where nothing ever happens. Weirder still, nothing happens at an incredible speed.
Upon arriving, given the conditions and the potential they could unleash I found this very disturbing and three years down the line I stand firm in the conviction that deliverance from economic struggle - victory over external conditions alone - will not foster cultural activity or activity of any kind for that matter. Don’t get me wrong I am not praising the virtues of lesser economic development or commending poverty as the driving force behind what might be called a more colourful life. Malaysia and Indonesia are by no means lesser developed countries, quite on the contrary, and yet, even though the riches are far from being as generously distributed by the ruling classes, they are far more advanced economically and intellectually and their cultural dimension remains alive. This is something immediately palpable, something that strikes you in the face as soon as you cross the border and step out of the bubble. Were it not for the outside workforce the enclave, with all it’s riches, would be incapable of keeping its head above water. People do dedicate their entire existence to the fulfilment of their fancy but the choices they make do not result in any productive ventures, revolving almost exclusively around the fervour with which they go to prayer and the enthusiasm with which they abandon themselves to consumerism. One is left with a frightening sense that money is literally being thrown out of the window and that even in those cases where investments are sought the scope is quick profit and not long term restructuring that would allow the enclave to face the unavoidable end of it’s oil and natural-gas reserves with some hope of survival.
[ 2 days upriver]
But hey, who am I to pass judgment on the system. I am not a sociologist, I am definitely not an economist and I sure as hell don’t want to be a moralist. You’re quite right if you’re thinking this is none of my business and that I best get on with my work and my own life. I just thought it would help to describe the setting and place the work we are doing in proper perspective. Having said this I’ll just add that had I been set to live in a remote village in the jungle, two days journey upstream or in the highlands of Bario, I would have been more than happy for time to stand still. I would have wanted nothing better than to enjoy the ride, fill dozens of notebooks with texts and drawings of my exile to keep me busy for years and return home without even so much as dreaming of looking for other artists. Some places are best left untarnished by our presence.
[Opposite the water village, a city of glass and steel]
But this is not a remote village, this is not the high plateau. It is a city that aspires to be modern [and is in many ways futuristic] but where everything that is alive/new and could breathe some life into the glass and steel structures is conquered - when and if conquered - at the cost of much sweat and tears. It was a place where, as an artist, I felt some intervention [albeit with some restrictions and care] was possible.
Faced with the news that I had arrived in a place that was ‘culturally dead’ my priorities revolved around carrying on with my work and maintaining my sanity. The initial plan was to remain focused on the studio work and see what it would yield regardless of who would see it, where or when. I decided to complete a series of 12 paintings inspired by my passage through Berlin before getting here [one for each month I spent with my wife and daughters in East Berlin where we came face to face with the harrowing reality of the re-emergence of nazi ideals]. These are angry pieces very few people have seen and I will probably only show once I’m back in the west and have found the appropriate venue [something in the line of the WW2 panzer factory in Hamburg where I held a show with 3 german artists back in 1997].
A few months into this new reality and busy at work I had ascertained for a fact that artistic activity was indeed close to nothing, that there were no commercial galleries or outlets for an artist to show work and that the going would definitely be tough. But I refused to give up on the idea that one or two artists might be lurking somewhere. By this time people had grown accustomed to hear that I was an artist, of the kind unfamiliar to them who actually spends all his waking hours pursuing his craft (a luxury I tell them I still fight hard to upkeep) and I think this may have captured their interest. By late August I was being told that so and so was also an artist and worked as a teacher to make a living, and so and so worked for the government and had links to an art society that had long ceased to exist… something was afoot!
Then, in September 2001, two things happened. First I made the blunder of expressing out loud how I was hoping that my reading of the sufi mystics would help me get a deeper insight into the reality of the enclave and Islam, and how that in turn would affect my work. The second was 9/11. Suddenly, the prospect of meeting so and so and so and so vanished, as did the worldview we had grown accustomed to. I have only recently been told that it was my fondness for the likes of Rumi and El-Ghazali, and not 9/11, that was the cause for this even greater distancing when a meeting had been so close: the official line taken by the particular brand of Islam upheld in the enclave is that the sufis are completely out of line.
[I came across these lines by Hakim Jami and have remained silent ever since: Stop boasting of intellect and learning; for here intellect is hampering, and learning is stupidity.]
I read all this as a call for patience, as an indication that I should wait for new opportunities to meet them, hopefully at the right time and in the right conditions [but at the same time other thoughts ran deep within my mind: did I still care to meet them? Was I still interested in gaining an insight into islam?]. Once again I took refuge in my work.
By early 2002 I had managed to complete most of the Berlin series and had several things happening in various, still incoherent, directions. By this time too, our daughters had acquired a reasonable command of English and adapted to their new school and my coaching became less and less required allowing me to spend more time in the studio. Time started to move at a faster pace. I had set aside the idea of meeting other artists and focused on plans for organizing a private viewing in the hope that this would have some kind of positive effect [more than the financial boost, I was hoping for a significant social event during which I hoped to befriend potential allies for more meaningful projects]. Time started to move even faster when in March I was approached by a group of art enthusiasts begging that I teach them. Reluctantly I agreed [I am not a teacher – I am self-taught] and as fate would have it this was what set me back on course to meet the elusive artists of the enclave.
For most of the group the history of painting had stopped with Van Gogh. I organized a 3 month workshop which revolved around introducing them to a variety of approaches that went from the impressionists to the abstract expressionists. The objective was to release them from their insistence to reproduce what they claimed they saw and teach them to see [feel?] and represent something they insisted they could not grasp. It was during these workshops that I came to meet Marsidi bin Omar who had, at some stage, led the group through the basics of watercolour technique and landscape composition. I recall our first meeting as being friendly but cautious and reserved [I was still unaware that I was a major factor of contamination]. We had reviewed some fundamental ideas underlying geometric abstraction and the group was busily creating their own ‘Piet Mondrians’ when he came in to invite us to an exhibition he had been selected to join at the Arts and Handicrafts centre on the riverfront.
[‘my love of and fear for’ – oil on canvas by Marsidi bin Omar]
You will imagine my amazement when I entered the building and discovered on the first floor what appeared to be a fully operational public art gallery. Yet no one had ever hinted at its existence! [this I have come to accept as the condition of things in the enclave: 1 + 1 do not necessarily add up. As things stand it is extremely difficult to come by precise information and the association of ideas or interests does not add up automatically to generate new possibilities… and being a foreigner makes the fabric of the enclave all the more impenetrable]. The exhibition on display happened to be a biennial affair sponsored by a famous tobacco company. Each country within the ASEAN region is called upon to select a limited group of representative artists who meet at a final event held in a different host country every other year. Marsidi and a few others I hoped to meet had been selected to represent the enclave in Bali.
[‘the artist’s experience unchanged’ – pastel by Mohamed Noor Asrin bin Haji Nazar]
For the first time in a very long while I was able to breathe-in deeply and I understood that I hadn’t been aware of how deeply I had longed to breathe-in. Within the space of one week I had come upon all that I had been looking for and the slogan the enclave had been using in it’s promotional campaign throughout 2001 suddenly materialised, it was indeed ‘a kingdom of unexpected treasures’. The overall quality of the works was above average considering the lack of art institutions, specifically art educational institutions and non-commercial art spaces for the exhibition and critical discussion of contemporary art works. I was particularly impressed with the work of Zakaria bin Omar [no relation to Marsidi bin Omar]. However, in the times that I returned to the gallery in the hope of meeting them I never came across any of the artists and my subsequent meetings with Marsidi remained polite leaving me with a feeling that it had all been a short-lived mirage.
[Tirai Opera – mixed media by Zakaria bin Omar]
And then, out of the blue, a scheme popped into my mind and in one of those ‘spur of the moment’ moments I decided to book myself on a flight to Bali.
To be continued…
