WOULD IT BE REPLACED
As I walked around the village during my short residency period, I felt something missing, something that became less produced, it is ‘celengan’, a traditional saving box (piggy bank) made form terracotta. The imbalance between production cost and the selling price, is the reason many villagers unwilling to produce it anymore. The ‘celengan’ price is low compare to tablewares, kitchen wares, water jars, lamp shades, and the most wanted is the ‘placenta jar’(the Javanese-Moslem tradition to keep the placenta after birth into the terracotta jar and buried it around the family house). Besides, the buyers demand is decreasing as this ‘traditional saving box’ is replaced by the electronic one in this modern era.
The work ‘WOULD IT BE REPLACED’ became a metaphor about artist’s memory of her childhood and probably peoples. Memory about the cheer emotion about something, and here is represented by ‘celengan’. Saving coins into ‘celengan’ is something unusual-it is like waiting something. Coins by coins are collected, waiting the right time to discover the value inside, and throb when we have to break the pot : “Such emotion did exist…..and irreplaceable”
The purpose of this work, is to raise the value of the ‘celengan’. Is the value will be higher when such product goes to the art gallery? I brought the various sizes of ‘celengan’ from the Bayat Village and displayed them on the gallery floor. The visitors were invited to choose one of the ‘celengan’ they like, and were asked to value the ‘celengan’ they chose with the appropriate price. If they valued it the same or higher from the real price, then they may get it for free.
What a surprise that the price of the ‘celengan’ is higher then the real price. Some visitors treated the ‘celengan’ as a product but they valued it higher, but some visitors treated the ‘celengan’ as an artwork so they valued it very high.
Ending the performance, the artist broke a ‘celengan’ filled with coins or money from the visitors shared voluntarily. The broken pieces and the coins and money are saved inside the clear jar, then the jar’s cover is sealed.
-Nia Gautama 2014-
As I walked around the village during my short residency period, I felt something missing, something that became less produced, it is ‘celengan’, a traditional saving box (piggy bank) made form terracotta. The imbalance between production cost and the selling price, is the reason many villagers unwilling to produce it anymore. The ‘celengan’ price is low compare to tablewares, kitchen wares, water jars, lamp shades, and the most wanted is the ‘placenta jar’(the Javanese-Moslem tradition to keep the placenta after birth into the terracotta jar and buried it around the family house). Besides, the buyers demand is decreasing as this ‘traditional saving box’ is replaced by the electronic one in this modern era.
The work ‘WOULD IT BE REPLACED’ became a metaphor about artist’s memory of her childhood and probably peoples. Memory about the cheer emotion about something, and here is represented by ‘celengan’. Saving coins into ‘celengan’ is something unusual-it is like waiting something. Coins by coins are collected, waiting the right time to discover the value inside, and throb when we have to break the pot : “Such emotion did exist…..and irreplaceable”
The purpose of this work, is to raise the value of the ‘celengan’. Is the value will be higher when such product goes to the art gallery? I brought the various sizes of ‘celengan’ from the Bayat Village and displayed them on the gallery floor. The visitors were invited to choose one of the ‘celengan’ they like, and were asked to value the ‘celengan’ they chose with the appropriate price. If they valued it the same or higher from the real price, then they may get it for free.
What a surprise that the price of the ‘celengan’ is higher then the real price. Some visitors treated the ‘celengan’ as a product but they valued it higher, but some visitors treated the ‘celengan’ as an artwork so they valued it very high.
Ending the performance, the artist broke a ‘celengan’ filled with coins or money from the visitors shared voluntarily. The broken pieces and the coins and money are saved inside the clear jar, then the jar’s cover is sealed.
-Nia Gautama 2014-
