Could you explain what drew you towards collection 1.0008 and how you started to navigate the early stages of your research?
When choosing a collection, I searched for a family who lived in Indonesia, preferably duringthe same period that I lived there as a young girl. Collection 1.0008 was particularly suitable, especially the memoirs of the mother. I worked with the section about her period in Indonesia.
At the beginning of the project I had the idea of comparing the lives of the two wives, the donor and my own mother, both of whom followed their husbands abroad. I let this idea go after reading the memoirs because so many memories of my own childhood came up, and secondly, after our own arrival in Indonesia, our family fell apart. My mother went back to the Netherlands with my two little brothers. Conversely, the woman of the memoirs had a good marriage.
My method was to select quotes from the memoirs that evoke memories.
Have you worked with archival material before and if so, could you comment on the importance of responding to historical records within your practice?
Not with an archive like the EAC, but in my work I frequently make use of historical material. For my painting series ‘Horti’, I used, for instance, garden designs by L.P. Roodbaard (1782–1851). For a series of labyrinth paintings I responded to the book Mazes and Labyrinths by W.H. Matthews (published 1922). Currently I’m working on a new series of architectural paintings inspired by the book Kleine Woningen by L. Zwiers (published 1923).
The good thing about working with historical material is that I do not have to invent everything again. It gives me a starting point. What I do with it … that’s my job!
Personal memory played a large role in how you approached this project. Did working with collection 1.0008 inform or change your own memories/history?
My mother returned to the Netherlands when I was five years old. It’s strange that I cannot remember anything about that time. Nor did I experience sorrow or miss her. Little was said about our Indonesian period. As a little girl, I didn’t see or feel the hostile attitude of Indonesians towards the Dutch, the former colonial rulers. My mother did tell me, however, that Jaja, my father’s most loyal servant, did not want to speak Dutch with her although she could speak it well.
Interestingly, in the donor’s memoirs, the mother wrote that she was spat on by Indonesians and that her son had mud thrown at him. She also writes about a particular ‘flag’ incident:
Ik maakte voor de kinderen een speeltentje, voor in de tuin. Ik zette er een vlaggetje op. Net echt, maar wel: rood-wit-blauw. Dom, want dat kan je natuurlijk niet doen, na de overdracht ! Een Indische soldaat, met stengun, kwam er woedend op af. ‘Bandera’(=vlag) riep hij, en het vlaggetje moest er af.
For the children I built a play tent in the garden and I put a small flag on top. Although it wasn’t real, it was still red, white and blue. A very stupid thing to do of course, after the transition [to Indonesian independence]! An Indonesian soldier armed with a machine gun approached and shouted angrily, ‘Bandera! (Flag!)’. The small flag had to be removed.
Your two paintings are views of the Indonesian landscape from above. Could you explain the concept and process of these works?
One of the first things I did was to find (using Google Earth) the location where the family lived. It was Bagus Kuning, Pladju, near Palembang, on the island of Sumatra. I painted an ‘impression’ of what I saw. The mother wrote in her memoirs about the location:
‘Er was voor vrouwen aan het “olie-gedoe” niet zo veel leuks te beleven.’ (This quote belongs to the painting.)
‘For women, all that “oil business” wasn’t much fun.’
The second painting responded to my own memory. My two big brothers took me to the Botanical Garden in Bogor. They showed me the ‘Meat- eating Plant’ (Carnivorous Plant). They wanted me to put my hand in the calyx of the plant, but I did not dare. There was a lot of ‘fun’ in this for my brothers. The location: Kebun Raya (Botanical Garden) Bogor, on the island of Java. This painting is based on a map of the Botanical Garden.
Domestic spaces, houses and gardens are recurring imagery in your work. Could you discuss the connections between your Saudade works and your wider themes?
The first painting feels strange to me. It ‘fits’ only in my Saudade project. The other one corresponds with my series of ‘Horti’ (Garden) paintings. This series is now the ‘Lost Garden’ series.
Now and again, I write poems. For my booklet submission, I wrote two poems: one about the crocodile leather shoes that belonged to my mother and the other about her crocodile leather bag. The design for the batik fabric and the overlap of the Dutch flag with the Indonesian flag are very specific to Saudade; they are unlike any pieces that I have created previously.
Are there any strategies or themes developed during the Saudade project that you are keen to take forward into future works?
That’s hard to predict. My way of working is not that rational. I work very impulsively. However, sometimes I pick up old ideas/works and go on with them, but often with another look or vision.