“Tanahku Indonesia”: On Materialscape as the Materiality of a Nation

Abstract

This paper explores how the architectural exhibition “Tanahku Indonesia” used architectural materiality to represent the cultural diversity of Indonesia. The exhibition reframed the idea of materiality using the perspective of materialscape as an extended view of material; a view that encompassed the contexts and origins, as well as the diverse production processes behind physical materiality. In particular, this paper highlights the curatorial practices and how they engaged with and highlighted the nation’s cultural diversity. The exhibition was an act of resistance against the universalizing forces of the modern construction industry. This article explores the integrated approach to research, collection and production that the curators developed and how they demonstrated the critical role of exhibitions and curatorial practice in advancing the discourse on local materiality and the sustainability of culture and tradition.

Keywords:

• Materiality
• cultural diversity
• origin
• collectivity
• exhibition production

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Badan Pusat Statistik, Kewarganegaraan, Suku Bangsa, Agama, dan Bahasa Sehari-hari Penduduk Indonesia: Hasil Sensus Penduduk 2010 (Jakarta: Badan Pusat Statistik, 2011).

2. Tanahku Indonesia, curated by Yandi Andri Yatmo and Paramita Atmodiwirjo, at the Dia.Lo.Gue Artspace, Jakarta, 8 to 12 November 2017.

3. Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till, The Everyday and Architecture (Architectural Design) (London: Academy Press, 1998), 7.

4. Gunawan Tjahjono, Architecture: The Indonesian Heritage Series, Volume 6 (Singapore: Archipelago Press, 1998).

5. Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance,” in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press, 1983), 21.

6. Ibid., 21.

7. Pedro Gadanho, “On Curating Architecture as Critical Practice,” Abitare 506 (2010). https://shrapnelcontemporary.wordpress.com/archive-texts/on-curating-architecture-as-critical-practice/

8. Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnik, “Editorial,” Journal of Curatorial Studies 3, no. 2–3 (2014): 171–172.

9. Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995), 4.

10. Stanford Anderson, “Modern Architecture and Industry: Peter Behrens, the AEG, and Industrial Design,” Oppositions 21 (1980): 83.

11. Gottfried Semper, “The Four Elements of Architecture: A Contribution to the Comparative Study of Architecture,” in The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings, trans. Henry Francis Mallgrave and Wolfgang Herrmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1851), 102–104.

12. Tim Ingold, “Materials against Materiality,” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (2007): 1–16.

13. Ibid., 14.

14. Ibid., 10.

15. David Leatherbarrow, Architecture Oriented Otherwise (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009), 7.

16. Katie Lloyd Thomas, “Specifications: Writing Materials in Architecture and Philosophy,” Architectural Research Quarterly 8, no. 3-4 (2004): 277-283.

17. Peter Zumthor, Atmospheres: Architectural Environments. Surrounding Objects (Basel: Birkhauser, 2006), 25.

18. Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism,” 28–29.

19. Ute Poerschke, “On Concrete Materiality in Architecture,” Architectural Research Quarterly 17, no. 2, (2013): 155.

20. Sandra Karina Loschke, ed., Materiality and Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).

21. Definitions from Online Etymology Dictionary.

22. Definitions from Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

23. Frank Forster et al, “What is Landscape? Towards a Common Concept within an Interdisciplinary Research Environment,” eTopoi Journal of Ancient Studies 3 (2012): 169.

24. Ibid., 169–179.

25. Peter Longatti and Thomas Dalang, “The Meaning of Landscape: An Exegesis of Swiss Government Texts,” in A Changing World. eds. F, Kienast, O. Wildi, and S. Ghosh (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 35-46.

26. W. J. T. Mitchell, Landscape and Power (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2002), 1. This concept of performativity is parallel to Leatherbarrow’s concept on the performativity of architecture as a shift from what architecture is to what architecture does. See David Leatherbarrow, Architecture Oriented Otherwise, 7.

27. Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York and London: Routledge, 1993), 2.

28. Jan Smitheram, “Spatial Performativity/Spatial Performance,” Architectural Theory Review 16, no. 1 (2011): 55–69.

29. Ibid., 61.

30. Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture, 2.

31. Ibid., 24-25.

32. Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 46.

33. Ibid., 50.

34. N. Kolodziejek and L. S. Tey, “Characteristics and Challenges of Brick Making Industry in Central Aceh, Silih Nara, Indonesia,” Journal of Advanced Research Design 18, no. 1 (2016): 20-34.

35. Mikhael Johanes and Arif Rahman Wahid, “Tanahku Indonesia: Celebrating the Indigenous Interior,” Interiority 1 no. 1 (2018): 79–86.

36. Francesca Hughes, The Architecture of Error: Matter, Measure, and the Misadventures of Precision (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2014).

37. Kenneth Frampton, “Towards a Critical Regionalism,” 21.

38. Paramita Atmodiwirjo, Mikhael Johanes, Diandra Pandu Saginatari, Yandi Andri Yatmo, “Ecological Aspects of the Traditional Brick Making Process in Pedurungan Kidul, Central Java,” E3S Web of Conferences 67(2018): 04034.

39. Benjamin Busch, Alison Hugill and Carson Chan, “Curating Architecture: The Architecture of Estrangement,” On Curating 31 (2016): 49.

40. Amanda H. Hellman, “The Grounds for Museological Experiments: Developing the Colonial Museum Project in British Nigeria,” Journal of Curatorial Studies 3 no. 1 (2014): 75–96.

41. Paul O’Neill, “The Curatorial Turn: From Practice to Discourse,” in Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, eds. Judith Rugg and Michele Sedgwick (Bristol: Intellect, 2007), 26.

42. Liz Wells, “Curatorial Strategy as Critical Intervention: The Genesis of Facing East,” in Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, eds. Judith Rugg and Michele Sedgwick (Bristol: Intellect, 2007), 30.

43. Paul O’Neill, “The Curatorial Turn,” 15.

44. Jane Rendell, “Critical Spatial Practice: Curating, Editing, Writing,” in Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance, eds. Judith Rugg and Michele Sedgwick (Bristol: Intellect, 2007), 60.

45. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1964).

46. Katie Lloyd Thomas, “Specifications”.

47. Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 130–135.

48. Francesca Hughes, The Architecture of Error. Also see Karen McCartney, ed., Perfect Imperfect: The Beauty of Accident, Age & Patina (New South Wales: Murdoch Books, 2016) for a range of works where various forms of imperfection become their inherent qualities.

49. Pedro Gadanho, “On Curating Architecture as Critical Practice.”

50. Jane Rendell, “Critical Spatial Practice,” 63.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paramita Atmodiwirjo

Paramita Atmodiwirjo is a professor of architecture at Universitas Indonesia. Her research interests are in the relationship between architecture and the society and in the role of architecture as a medium for educating the society. She is the co-curator of the exhibition Tanahku Indonesia.

Yandi Andri Yatmo

Yandi Andri Yatmo is a professor of architecture at Universitas Indonesia. His expertise is in the development of creative architectural design methods and how architecture could respond appropriately to the context. He is the co-curator of the exhibition Tanahku Indonesia.