Providing Space for Visual Artists

Mella Jaarsma recalls a day in July 1998 when, along with six other foreign visitors standing across the Agung State Palace in Yogyakarta's Malioboro area, she watched as a dish of frog legs was being fried in a big wok over a charcoal stove. Passersby stopped their strolling to watch the strange scene: seven foreigners watching their dish being cooked on the side of a street. The dish was then offered to the onlookers.

"It was all consumed," said Jaarsma, who initiated the performance art titled Pribumi-Pribumi ('The Indigenous'), recalling that particular activity some 18 years back when Tempo visited the Rumah Seni ('Art House') Cemeti in Yogyakarta.