The Concept of ’CEREMONIAL OF HAVING MEALS WITH UPSIDE DOWN YELLOW RICE CONE'

On September 2010, I've got a chance to follow an International Exhibition in Jakarta which involved many foreign ceramic artist. Here I exhibited my artwork titled: ’CEREMONIAL OF HAVING MEALS WITH UPSIDE DOWN YELLOW RICE CONE'
The event run well, and I was so grateful for many attention given to my artwork from the audiences at that time.

The Concept of ’CEREMONIAL OF HAVING MEALS WITH UPSIDE DOWN YELLOW RICE CONE'

Indonesia is rich of various and meaningful local culture. From this country, there are so many inspiration sources for meaningful latest aesthetic expression. Also local culture “kenduri tumpeng” (ceremonial of having meals with rice cone – dining in togetherness). In this cultural process, a group of people have meals together with yellow rice cone. The yellow rice cone has tremendous symbolical meaning. It teaches glory, relation between macrocosmos and microcosmos. In ceremonial of having meals with yellow cone we are inherited values of togetherness, fairness, tolerance, and honoring people rights. Having meals teaches social culture in getting rights as the responsible owed, so that there would be fairness. The edge of yellow rice cone is for the leader or people figure who considered as wong agung (honorable person), since they owed position in the social group. While the next layer would get the lower layer which was much more since many more people ate it. The wider yellow rice cone is the lower people (wong alit) rights. The lower people refers to social community who are more than the ceremony participant.
How great our ancestor, creating high philosophical culture to be given to the next generation, and until now many people are still doing it. But the latest generation has betrayed the glorious value of kenduri tumpeng. Kenduri tumpeng is done with reversed intention (value fighting). So that the value implementation is contradictive. It showed the greediness of higher power people or individual (wong agung group) in their community. They took the part of weaker people, while grass root society with many amount ate from the edge of the upside down yellow rice cone from the dining residue. They fought each other. It is social reality existed everywhere in social group. Having meals in yellow rice cone is cultural deception.
This social phenomena inspired me to visualize it in aesthetic expression of ceramic installation titled: Ceremonial of Having Meals with upside down yellow rice cone” formed in a group of human statue ceramic with fighting expression in a giant rice steamer and small rice steamer composed in ceramic installation. In the upside down edge, there were some people snatched the rice edge from upside down yellow rice cone. While in wider diameter, fewer people, expressed the powerful people in group, freely eating the grass root people’s right.
In visual, it has contradictive aesthetical meaning from cone composition form. The cone made from bamboo with wider diameter composed with fewer statues, when in the edge, there were more people statue (as the figure of grass root people fought for the edge of yellow rice cone), in visual it was a contradictive aesthetic composition (against maturity).
Artwork specification:
-Artwork: ceramic installation consisted of ceramic statues installed in bamboo cane work with cone shape. The height was 150cm with 90cm diameter; completed with 3 supported cones. All cones hung in upside down position in exhibition plafond.
-Main material: stoneware ceramic and earthenware. Shaping technique: pinching.