The practice of remembering depends on how history is constructed. There are too many upsetting and depressing events in the past, thus our human brain has a mechanism to filter and forget memories. In another hand, in order to maintain its power, the ruler also develops a set of mechanism to form imagination and plant it inside the people’s minds by constructing the history. Some events in the past are always commemorated, but some are either cut or ‘removed’ entirely.
Let’s remember what Milan Kundera once says, “The struggle of a man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
Mei Homma, a Japanese artist, feels trapped inside an imagination which puts women in disadvantage as patriarchal system and gender inequality perpetuates in her country. After reading This Earth of Mankind and Child of All Nations by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1980), she questions more about how patriarchal system and gender inequality has existed for a long time and continuously propagates. Mei’s work, My Note about Maiko’s Country, has opened a new challenging path for her. This work encourages her to seek and find certain historical archives and then put them together as an alternative historical narrative.
Mei’s encounter with This Earth of Mankind and Child of All Nations has not only provided important information related to the existence of female Japanese entertainers who were sent to several Asia-Pacific and Europe countries, but also has inspired her (whether she realizes it or not) to reveal the history using historiography method pioneered by Pramoedya.
My Note about Maiko’s Country portrays an essay film, a slightly different genre of documentary. Mei uses Minke’s narratives from several fragments in This Earth of Mankind and Child of All Nations as the narration in this film. Minke, the main character in Pramoedya’s novel, tells the story of Japanese period to gain superpower status that began in the early 19th century which is indicated through a number of important discoveries by Japanese scientists, such as the findings on the microbes of bubonic plague and dysentery, as well as the progress of Japan’s trade as its trade offices and shops were officially opened in the Dutch East Indies.
In the smaller narrative, Minke also tells about Maiko, a female entertainer (commonly called as karayuki-san) who suffers from human trafficking, abusive conduct and venereal disease. The existence of Maiko represents the bigger thing: thousands of karayuki-san were sent abroad by Japanese government since prostitution industry was considered as ‘a critical asset to the country’ as it collected high taxes.
Minke’s story about Maiko, presented through direct sentences, has enriched Mei’s understanding on her country’s modern history. Minke’s description not only tells about the great progress of Japan but also historical scandals that have never been told to Japanese people. Mei says that research on karayuki-san only appeared in Japan around the 1970s, and until now no one discusses about this topic anymore. Even the history of karayuki-san is not being taught in schools.
My Note about Maiko’s Country comes with the peculiarities of an essay film: the plot is running slow with static framing yet it is touching. Minke’s character and speech is brought to life by an Indonesian-male-speaking voice while a Japanese-female-speaking voice revives Maiko’s character. Their speeches are ‘indirectly illustrated’ by presenting number of archives such as newspaper clippings, medicines, video footages and photos. Sometimes Mei also put some archived photos and videos at the top of her collection of photos and videos, either with analog or digital cameras. This selection not only emphasizes the impression of the past and the present, but also becomes her method to ‘manipulate’ the historical narrative.
Simple visualization is chosen consciously. Mei says that an artwork that only displays historical archives is expressive enough rather than creates something new. Mei continues that artists actually always conduct research but they do not often display their research archives. By using an essay film, Mei aims to show the archives directly and straightforwardly.
What concerns us more is Mei’s spirit to bring Maiko’s character to life, which in some parts, it is clearly seen that Mei takes Pramoedya’s step in reviving Minke’s character. Minke is nothing but a representation of Tirto Adhi Soerjo, a scholar and a journalist who initiated the spirit of Indonesian nationalism before Budi Utomo (1908). There is no record about Tirto Adhi Soerjo before Pramoedya’s research due to the strong colonial historiography in the Dutch colonial era and the New Order.
Pramoedya is an important figure in the formation of historiography and national history of Indonesia, especially through This Earth of Mankind and Child of All Nations, as well as two other books in The Buru Tetralogy. This tetralogy, though started to be published in 1980, is the result of Pramoedya’s research for years about the modern Indonesian history. Hilmar Farid states that the most important Pramoedya’s contribution is he does not use the archive to find the facts, but he reads it in reverse. He sees archive as a modified colonial power which wants to reconstruct the truth that sometimes deviates from the real circumstance but later is regarded as truth.
Now let us put Farid’s argument in My Note about Maiko’s Country. If The Buru Tetralogy is Pramoedya’s critical piece in seeing archives to uncover the historical facts and treat it as a fiction (or a modified work), on the contrary, My Note about Maiko’s Country treats a modified work as an important part to construct a historical narrative. The speeches of Minke and Maiko has led and brought Mei to the authentic archives scattered in several countries in order to compile My Note about Maiko’s Country.
My Note about Maiko’s Country shows interesting way in utilizing the archives, both in reading and in its presentation, to be read by a wider public. It also allows the possibility of communal knowledge-constructing. Archiving practice is being adapted to show subjectivity that agitates the single and fixed imagination which holds the public to acquire a better interpretation on particular historical event.
Reference:
Hilmar Farid, Pramoedya and Historiography of Indonesia (2008). The writing is accessible via http://hilmarfarid.com/wp/342/, accessed on April 5, 2017
*This essay is an introduction of Mei Homma Solo Exhibition: My Note about Maiko’s Country, April 7-9, 2017 at Omnispace. Translated from Bahasa to English by Invani Lela Herliana
Chabib Duta Hapsoro 