We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 January 2015
This is an examination of the recent work of Indonesian visual artist FX Harsono in relation to Chinese Indonesian identity, the erasure of history, and the challenge of communicating through trauma. It is my hope that this work will contribute to the dialogue on both the Chinese Indonesian experience and large-scale ethnic violence.
1 Aguilar, Filomeno V., ‘Citizenship, inheritance, and the indigenizing of “Orang Chinese” in Indonesia’, Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 9, 3 (2001): 501–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Reid, Anthony, Sojourners and settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001).Google Scholar
3 Wibowo, E.I., ‘Mendulang nasionalisme aktivisme politik Orang Tionghoa pasca-Suharto’, Setelah air mata kering, masyarakat Tionghoa pasca-peristiwa Mei 1998 (Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2010).Google Scholar
4 Schwarz, Adam, A nation in waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).Google Scholar
5 Lembong, Eddie, ‘Indonesian government policies and the ethnic Chinese: Some recent developments’, Ethnic Chinese in contemporary Indonesia, ed. Suryadinata, Leo, pp. 48–56 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008).Google Scholar
6 Vitalis, L., ‘Effects of the revenue farming system’, in Chinese economic activity in Netherlands India: Selected translations from the Dutch, ed. Bulbeck, David and Fernando, M.R. (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992), pp. 26–42.Google Scholar
7 Purdey, Jemma, Anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia, 1996–1999 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006)Google Scholar, p. 7.
8 Purdey, Anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia.
9 Quoted in Schwarz, A nation in waiting, p. 106.
10 Purdey, Anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia, p. 123.
11 Ridwan Max Sijabat, ‘Six years after, May 1998 tragedy still unresolved’, Jakarta Post, 13 May 2004, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2004/05/13/six-years-after-may-1998-tragedy-still-unresolved.html (last accessed 27 Oct. 2014).
12 Sijabat, ‘Six years after’.
13 Nurfika Osman and Ulman Haryanto, ‘Still no answers, or peace, for many rape victims’, Jakarta Globe, 14 May 2010, http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/still-no-answers-or-peace-for-many-rape-victims/374845/ (last accessed 27 Oct. 2014).
14 Kusno, Abidin, ‘Remembering/forgetting the May riots: Architecture, violence and the making of “Chinese culture”’, Public Culture 15, 1 (2003): 149–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 Harsono, FX, ‘Artist's statement’, FX Harsono show catalogue (Yogyakarta: Galeri Canna, 2013)Google Scholar, p. 91.
16 Sidel, John Thayer, Riots, pogroms, jihad: Religious violence in Indonesia (Singapore: NUS Press, 2007).Google Scholar
17 Tjing, Kwee Thiam, Indonesia dalem api dan bara (Jakarta: Lembaga Kajian Masalah Kebangsaan, 2004)Google Scholar; Toer, Pramoedya Ananta, Hoa Kiau di Indonesia (Bintang: Bintang Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Blussé, Leonard, ‘Batavia, 1619–1740: The rise and fall of a Chinese colonial town’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12, 1 (1981): 159–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., Violence and the state in Suharto's Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Coppel, Charles A., Studying ethnic Chinese in Indonesia (Singapore: Singapore Society of Asian Studies, 2002)Google Scholar; Suryadinata, ed. Ethnic Chinese in contemporary Indonesia; Shiraishi, Takashi, ‘Anti Sinicism in Java's New Order’, in Essential outsiders, ed. Chirot, Daniel and Reid, Anthony (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011): 187–207.Google Scholar
18 See, for example, Nyoman Nuarta's ‘Nightmare’ (1999), Dadang Christanto's ‘Kekerasam’ (1995), Heri Dono's ‘Octopusation’ (2012), and Seno Gumira Ajidarma's story ‘Clara’, Republika, 26 June 1998.
19 Iola Lenzi, ‘FX Harsono at Singapore Art Museum’, Asian Art, Apr. 2011, pp. 15–16.
20 Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, ‘FX Harsono's rebellious, critical voice against “big power” in Indonesia', New York Times, 11 Mar. 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/arts/12iht-Jessop.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (last accessed 27 Oct 2014).
21 Rath, Amanda Katherine, Wiyanto, Hendro, Jin, Seng Yu and Siuli, Tan, Re: Petition/Position/FX Harsono (Magelang: Langgeng Art Foundation, 2010).Google Scholar
22 Art Radar Asia, ‘FX Harsono and the art of political protest: Para Site Hong Kong Artist Talk’, 23 Apr. 2013, http://artradarjournal.com/2013/04/23/fx-harsono-and-the-art-of-political-protest-para-site-hong-kong-artist-talk/ (last accessed 27 Oct 2014).
23 Mia Maria, ‘A hidden history of injustice: Mia Maria discovers a haunting past through FX Harsono's art’, Jakarta Globe, 22 July 2013, http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/features/a-hidden-history-of-injustice/ (last accessed 27 Oct 2014).
24 Christine Clark, ‘Beyond the self’, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 2011, http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/exhibition_subsite_beyondtheself_essay.php#start (last accessed 27 Oct 2014).
25 FX Harsono, ‘Artist's statement’, p. 93.
26 The term Peranakan is used to describe individuals of Chinese descent who live in Indonesia and Malaysia.
27 FX Harsono, ‘Artist's statement’, p. 66.
28 Hendro Wiyanto, ‘Curatorial: Truth, beauty and FX Harsono's quest’, in FX Harsono Show Catalogue, pp. 11–13.
29 Kusno, ‘Remembering/forgetting the May riots’: 167.
30 H.G. Masters, ‘This is history: FX Harsono’, Art Asia Review, Oct. 2013, pp. 114–23.
31 Luckhurst, Roger, The trauma question (London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar, p. 79.
32 Siegel, James T., ‘Thoughts on the violence of May 13 and 14, 1998, in Jakarta’, in Violence and the state in Suharto's Indonesia, ed. Anderson, Benedict R. O'G., pp. 190–213 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
33 Frank, Arthur, The wounded storyteller: Body, illness and ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
34 Purdey, Anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia.
35 Wiyanto, ‘Curatorial: Truth, beauty and FX Harsono's quest’, p. 17.
