Project Tobong - Helen Marshall and Risang Yuwono
© Helen Marshall
Project Tobong is a collaboration between British artist Helen Marshall and Indonesian artist Risang Yuwono. It is a research and development art project with the Ketoprak Tobong Kelana Bakti Budaya, one of the last remaining theatre troupes in Yogyakarta, Java. The artists documented the lives of this community and where they live on the outskirts of the city of Yogyakarta, spending a period of intensive residency with them, and devised a series of constructed photographs or tableau vivant (living pictures), whereby each player was removed from their original context. The artists worked together to encourage a spontaneous response from each player and confront the spectator, intending to provoke questions about the role of traditional arts within a contemporary backdrop.
This project is supported by Arts Council England and the British Council, hosted by Indonesia Contemporary Art Network (iCAN). Ketoprak means musical drama, sometimes dialogue, monologue and singing and music. The Tobong is a temporary building with no walls, constructed from bamboo, that can be moved from place to place. It often is a stage, a group of dwellings and a place for the audience. Ketoprak Tobong today can no longer live independently. Globalisation, technological development and modernisation has made it economically difficult. The Ketoprak are also marginalised and disempowered by such progress, they receive less public attention these days as younger generations are less interested in traditional culture.
Helen Marshall is a British artist: She graduated in Photography from Bournemouth University in 1992. Her work is rooted in photography, lens-based and new media. She has a track record in socially engaged and collaborative practice in the public realm. Recent work includes a BBC South East commission, a residency on The ‘Big & Small’ Program at Tate Britain and a community wide inaugural public art project, ‘Home Sweet Cary’, North Carolina, USA. She has previously collaborated with contemporary Chinese photographers in Beijing 2006. For more information about Helen's work, please visit www.helenmarshall.co.uk
Risang Yuwono, born in Semarang (Indonesia), graduated in Photography in 2009 from the photography faculty at Jakarta Institute of Art, Institut Kesenian Jakarta. He currently lives and works in Jakarta as a freelance photographer on a number of commercial and social cultural assignments. He has had his work published in national and international press including Jakarta post newspaper, Tempo Magazine and Jakarta Institute. He also teaches at the National Islam University, and runs a not for profit underground community photography project 'Bautanah Street Gallery' based behind Cikini Jakarta train station. For more information about Risang's's work, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/risangyuwono
This project is supported by Arts Council England and the British Council, hosted by Indonesia Contemporary Art Network (iCAN). Ketoprak means musical drama, sometimes dialogue, monologue and singing and music. The Tobong is a temporary building with no walls, constructed from bamboo, that can be moved from place to place. It often is a stage, a group of dwellings and a place for the audience. Ketoprak Tobong today can no longer live independently. Globalisation, technological development and modernisation has made it economically difficult. The Ketoprak are also marginalised and disempowered by such progress, they receive less public attention these days as younger generations are less interested in traditional culture.
Helen Marshall is a British artist: She graduated in Photography from Bournemouth University in 1992. Her work is rooted in photography, lens-based and new media. She has a track record in socially engaged and collaborative practice in the public realm. Recent work includes a BBC South East commission, a residency on The ‘Big & Small’ Program at Tate Britain and a community wide inaugural public art project, ‘Home Sweet Cary’, North Carolina, USA. She has previously collaborated with contemporary Chinese photographers in Beijing 2006. For more information about Helen's work, please visit www.helenmarshall.co.uk
Risang Yuwono, born in Semarang (Indonesia), graduated in Photography in 2009 from the photography faculty at Jakarta Institute of Art, Institut Kesenian Jakarta. He currently lives and works in Jakarta as a freelance photographer on a number of commercial and social cultural assignments. He has had his work published in national and international press including Jakarta post newspaper, Tempo Magazine and Jakarta Institute. He also teaches at the National Islam University, and runs a not for profit underground community photography project 'Bautanah Street Gallery' based behind Cikini Jakarta train station. For more information about Risang's's work, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/risangyuwono
