Sunday Market

Last Sunday I went to this temporary event named 'Sunday Market' at Surabaya Town Square. I heard from here and there that this so-called 'hipster' event was an imitation of a similar event in Jakarta, Brightspot Market. A three-days market where young Indonesian creative entrepreneurs poured into one large but crowded space, selling their indie stuffs, which mostly about fashion and some homemade sweets. I think this Sunday Market event was trying to copy the concept and revive this 'culture' in Surabaya.

When I arrived at Sutos (that's how we called it here, the Surabaya Town Square), I expected some 'cool' crowd showing their own identity, unique, different from one another, and where young entrepreneurs selling good made-in-Indonesia stuffs. Just like what I experienced in Brightspot Market, where there, in Jakarta, it was considered a prestigious event.
Well I saw some and felt proud of it. Yet what I got in a larger perspective was a bunch of youth, smoking, dressing the same one to another, no 'artsy' talks between them or exchanging ideas on how to change Indonesia to be a better progressive society. Instead I saw some kids playing cards on one corner, blowing their money on cigarettes, or some just standing there 'enjoying' some distracted noise sung by the unknown performers on the stage.

Then I walked to another part of the area. A graffiti and mural exhibition. The title of the exhibition was 'Go Home You're Drunk'. And suddenly another disappointment fell to place.

I used to know how graffiti and mural movement was started to be a street media to fight against unfairness of authority, to bring justice to poor people, or to spread revolutionary messaged everywhere so people can see, read and be motivated.
It carried messages.
It was there because it was meant to tell something.
Something worth spreading.
Something which intended to bring change, and a better future.





 But what I saw last night was nothing but decorated colorful emptiness.
I did not even understand what they were trying to say through their so-called art.

Isn't it our obligation as a human being, or moreover as a citizen of a country to use all our talents and abilities to produce something good which not only ends up at our own self-fame or existentialist expressions?

I remember what a respective senior Indonesian painter, Djokopekik, said to me in his studio in Jogjakarta, once after he finished sharing his ideology of art to some students visiting his place. He said to me, "I told those kids to understand that they can speak not only by their mouths. If they are an artist, then it means they have to speak through their arts, their creations.
We are all a messenger. Even our lives have to continually bring messages to other people. It's like breathing. You inhale, but also exhale.. It's how you live."

Djokopekik and his recent painting, titled 'Trance'. Telling about our sick governments who are supposed to govern with fairness and justice, yet being in 'trance' of greediness and hypocrisy, and leaving Indonesia hopeless.  

In my opinion, some of those street artists that night, painted with the hope not so this country can be slowly turned into a better place by what they painted, instead I believe with a greater hope to get famous and at the end pleasing those 'possible-buyers' and get some money out of it.

While there are a lot of other things they can paint to raise other fellow young generations' awareness and compassion for this country:
Our brothers in Papua, people fighting for freedom in Aceh, the propaganda for upcoming president election, and many other 'more-important' things than just a lame message to show that you are drunk and you should go home (?!)

Again I remember what the great Argentine painter, Alberto Bruzzone, once said, "I cannot paint flowers or motherhood, when (I know there are) my students being killed om the streets!".

Can you paint all of these empty mess when you know there is genocide going on now in Papua? Or when you remember there are a lot of Indonesian children are not even sure whether they can go to school tomorrow or not because their parents never get the BLT which supposed to be their rights but greedily eaten by those corrupted governments?

Can you even think about the title of your 'supposed-to-be-carrying-a-message' mural-graffiti: "Save The World, Kill Yourself"?
What does that even mean?


That night..
I stepped away slowly from the depressing exhibition area.
My mind wandered to that afternoon I spent at Djo's studio, surrounded by magnificent artworks endlessly telling me about the conditions of Indonesia, about the fighting spirit of our previous national heroes.
Burning my heart filling my soul with the calling to do something for this country.. not for one own's fame or money.

That night..
I hoped Indonesia still had a hope.

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