STATE OF THE ARTS
The Mitra Seni Indonesia group is uniting to support Indonesian art forms
With the belief that culture has the power to unite a nation, Mitra Seni Indonesia has become a vanguard for the preservation of Indonesian art forms
SRi Romadhiyati, better known as Sri Harmoko after her husband Harmoko, Indonesia’s Minister of Information from 1983 to 1997, was accompanied by two other ladies when Indonesia Tatler visited her residence in the Kuningan area recently. Her friends were Susrinah, wife of the late Sanyoto Sastrowardoyo, head of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) from 1993 until 1998, and her daughter, Sari Ramdani. The three of them are notable for cofounding and being involved in Mitra Seni Indonesia (the Art Association of Indonesia), known in short as MSI.
“MSI was co-founded 12 years ago by Susrinah, her late husband, and me,” Sri Harmoko told us in her cheery living room. Historically, MSI is a continuation of a pre-existing art foundation named Yayasan Seni Rupa Indonesia (the Visual Art Foundation of Indonesia), which was established as an organising committee for an art exhibition in 1994.
“We invited foreign artists to showcase their artworks in the exhibition side by side with paintings from the National Palace,” Susrinah added.
After the exhibition, the foundation became a catalyst for the establishment of many art galleries in Jakarta, which had started to trend. The foundation also became the host for an annual art competition supported by Philip Morris. Having established a prominent presence in Indonesia’s art world, many talented artists sought them out and expressed their wishes to join.
“However, as a foundation, we couldn’t accept members, so we decided to create an art community, which then became Mitra Seni Rupa Indonesia (the Visual Art
Association of Indonesia), before we changed the name to Mitra Seni Indonesia,” Susrinah said.
Now with more than 800 members, MSI actively promotes various national art forms, from painting, traditional dancing, choir singing, the gamelan, angklung, kolintang, and arumba, and many more. Currently, MSI is led by Sari Ramdani as the Chairperson elected through an internal voting process. She told us that over the years, MSI has made substantial progress as more and more people joined the organisation.
“We want to preserve the love of national art through getting families involved. If a member of a family, let’s say the mother, joins our association because they want to help preserve national art, hopefully, the rest of the family will become interested, too,” Sari said. Indeed, most of the
“We want to preserve the love of national art through getting families involved. If a member of a family, let’s say the mother, joins our association because they want to help preserve national art, hopefully, the rest of the family will become interested, too”
members of MSI are women, but MSI is open to both males and females of all ages and nationalities. “As long as you love Indonesian art forms, then you are more than welcome to join,” Susrinah added.
As a national art association, MSI has achieved much. It just held an art exhibition at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia. It has also performed in Moscow in an Indonesian festival held by the Embassy of Indonesia in Russia, which was intended to promote Indonesia to the people of Russia and strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries. “We deeply believe that art can be an effective tool for diplomacy,” Sari said.
Other than performing, MSI has also created initiatives to empower people through art. One such initiative is based in Cilekong Village in West Java, where many people create mass-produced paintings for a living. “Their paintings were usually priced at Rp75,000 to Rp200,000 per painting by wholesalers who then would sell them at significantly higher prices,” Sri said. MSI selected four of the most talented painters from the village to attend a workshop by Sunaryo, a member of MSI who runs the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space in Bandung. After the workshop, they went back to the village to teach the other painters to improve their painting skills and thus sell their paintings at higher prices.
“The village has developed so much since then,” Sari told us enthusiastically. “It has become a tourist spot too; they have other traditional art performances in the village like wayang and angklung. They still paint, of course—some have even become fine artists and showcase their paintings at exhibitions,” she added. Moreover, it has been MSI’S mission to endorse and support artists who are committed to preserving and passing down their legacies to younger generations.
“We hope that more and more people will start to love Indonesian art and culture, because they are what unite us together as a nation,” Sri Harmoko said as we ended our inspiring conversation.