For some lucky visitors during Singapore Art Week, taking in art took a strange and exciting turn when they went to witness the show organized and undertaken by Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo. Around twelve people at a time got to stand in a white painted room with the artist, also dressed in white, while she fired some 800 arrows into the walls around them.
While the artist made sure not to hit any of the spectators during the performance, she didn’t engage in them verbally or physically. The personal performance was something of a voyeuristic experience for the visitors. For a few minutes, they had the opportunity witness the quiet physicality and determination of Suryodarmo as she repeated her action 800 times.
The arrows were left in the walls of the performance space to be part of a retrospective exhibit. The effect, overall, is stunning and impactful. With hundreds of white feathered arrows protruding from white walls, visitors to the exhibit have the sense that an act of violence took place in the room — even if it was simply a performance art piece from Suryodarmo. Arrows are made for killing things, after all.
In another view, the arrows could be seen as the impotence of individual action in current world politics. From a social media standpoint, sharing opinions on the internet could be compared to shooting arrows off into space, never certain that any of them will find their targets. Suryodarmo had no particular target to aim for during her performance — just an area of wall that didn’t already have an arrow in it. Her approach to the performance was a meditation on the physical action of firing the arrows — not hitting a particular target. In the online sharing of opinions, posts, and the minutiae of daily life, this performance offers perhaps even a moving commentary on efforts to reach out and belong to a community of like-minded people — or even just get feedback and validation.
Suryodarmo is well known for her performance art pieces, many of which test the limits of her concentration and stamina. Shooting 800 arrows isn’t an easy task. Past performances have included her dancing in high heels on rapidly melting stacks of butter, and spending an entire half of a day grinding charcoal into powder.
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To read more about the performance artist’s projects, go to http://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2132190/indonesian-performance-artist-brings-her-maverick-style.