Ones Who Looked at The Presence

2017 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

12:57 minutes

Otty Widasari

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Otty Widasari is an artist that started her professional career as journalist and got engaged in the media activism and documentary filmmaking. She worked for newspapers and TV station in Jakarta, was one of the founders of Forum Lenteng and since 2008 has been active as Program Director in akumassa program. The solo artistic practice of Otty Widasary is partially nourished by her media activist engagements, experience of journalists dealing with social and historical actualities in the media realm and film connoisseurship (collaboration with O.K. video and Arkipel, international documentary and experimental film festival). A continuous drawing practice accompanying her collective activities, research, scenario and text writing gathers, bringing all her activities at one place – at her working diary. Her artistic work oscillates in between video and filmmaking, performance, drawing and brings together puzzles of distinct thematics. It deals with everyday struggles related to the material condition of life as in Home (2007) where the main subject of the documentary complaints about permanent working exploitation of low class laborer in Jakarta, or in Horor satu menit (2005) inquiring the child fear in an intimate setup. Video poem Green Mountain, Heaven Mountain , from 2013 thematizes by a quote from a piece of ancient rubaiyaat from Persia a tension in between certain patriarchal restrictive habits and the need of a woman to “feel the heavenly pleasure that exists in the world”. In her video work Diorama while adding a mysterious multi-channeled voice over to the video recording of famous Diorama at the Monumen Nasional she dissolves the monolithic clarity of unique interpretation of the national story.

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Colors:

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• virtu.n.01
• journalist.n.01
• materiality.n.02
• daily.s.01
• performance.n.01
• laborer.n.01