by Eva McGovern, pubished on http://www.arterimalaysia.com
Birdprayers is an ongoing multi site, multidisciplinary project that combines performance, exhibitions and talks by artists Sara Nuytemans (The Netherlands) and Arya Pandjalu (Indonesia). It is a creative response to the weighty and seemingly impossible to resolve issue of religious conflict in the world. By representing four major world religions, Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Islam the artists react and challenge competing (and at times inter) religious hegemonies locked in a never ending debate of often bloody and polemical drama. However, although Birdprayers expresses the need for unity and peace, rather than being strictly utopian in focus, the project also highlights the difficult realities of such a goal through playful and sombre strategies.
All in the Mind is the title of the (main) performance strand of the project. Four protagonists, in neutral costumes, wear models of each of the main houses of worship on top of their heads: a church, synagogue, mosque and Hindu temple. They walk through their surroundings and or position themselves as a living monuments for passerby’s to be confused, amused and challenged. The performances, of which there have been 5 to date have taken place in the rice fields of Bali, a bird market in Jogyakarta, a pond near the parliament buildings in The Hague, the New Mosque in Istanbul as well as in front of the Colleseum in Rome. Specifically chosen for their visual and symbolic impact Birdprayersutilises these striking backdrops to heighten the power of performance as a mode of communication. As such, the project confronts the physical and psychological walls built by conservative notions surrounding the external ritualisation of mass religion and culture rather then more personal spiritual responses to these faiths.
Each model is covered with relevant materials to the location, seeds suspended in resin on wood for Bali, printed zinc (for making tin cans) in Yogyakarta, traditional Turkish fabric for Istanbul, slices of bread for the Hague (for the birds on the pond to eat) and tourist maps in Rome. However, there is no recognisable religious symbolism. This is a deliberate strategy to resist the immediate and strong connotations such symbols as the Star of David, the Cross, Om and the Star and Crescent of Islam provoke in the minds of the viewers. Rather then quote religious iconography Nuytemans and Pandjalu prefer to use site specificity through the surfaces of their models to address issues of cultural identity through religion.
Cultural identity is learnt from childhood. This process conditions the mind on what is familiar, natural to become a perceived ‘truth’ versus what is foreign, unfamiliar and therefore not to be trusted or believed so easily. Nuytemans comments that “As Neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to change its structure and function in response to experience) is one of the most important and developing topics in Neuroscience today, it becomes more and more clear that humans always explore the surroundings with the reference of his own mind-set. We all have a culturally modified brain. Cultural differences are so persistent because when our native culture is learned, it becomes “second nature”. The tastes of our culture all seem “natural” to us. In general, humans find familiar types of stimulation pleasurable: they seek out like-minded individuals to associate with, and they tend to ignore or forget, or attempt to discredit, information that does not match their beliefs, or perception of the world, because it is very distressing and difficult to think and perceive in unfamiliar ways.” As such the collaboration between Nuytmans and Pandjalu, two artists from very different cultural backgrounds, is a method of cross cultural pollination through sharing and learning as well as as combination of knowledge to address issues surrounding religion, as two citizens of the global world.
The performance is not an overt political protest but a call for unity, a diplomatic attempt at tolerance and is an ongoing project that will be performed in sites around the world with accompanying talks and exhibitions. However this is not to say that is does not engage with politics. It would be impossible not to link the two that have historically walked hand in hand for generations. The sequence performed by a river in the Hague is played in reverse, alluding to the work of extreme right wing minister Geert Wilders whose anti-Muslim rhetoric seems to be polarising the Netherlands into potentially pro and anti Islamic battle grounds. Even the birds, were not tempted to try to eat the models made out of bread. However rather than taking an overt and didactic stance Birdprayers seeks to provoke questioning and hopes to champion possibilities whilst highlighting the current landscape of political, cultura and religious tensions.
Although presented as a group, the division and silence between each of the performers is palpable. All the three monotheistic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) stem from the same Abrahamic beginnings and all these religions share similar views on morality yet their isolation from one another has been the foundation of wars and conflicts. The symbolic walls of these houses of worship have the possibility to trap the mind, like a bird cage, whereas the bird, itself so prevalent in religion, in this instance is a marker of freedom and transcendence from the earthly world to a higher and more personal spiritual plane.
Will we ever live in a world devoid of conflict and misunderstanding, of inter faith harmony and tolerance? It seems unlikely given human nature. How will these grand narratives ever be achieved? Birdprayers doesn’t provide those answers, but presents a striking visual engagement with these issues in the hope to open up dialogue to reveal the walls that separate and divide us.
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