It smells of sweat and jasmine addresses labour issues in colonial, contemporary, and diasporic Indonesia through the lens of women and genderqueer artists. Through collecting the artists’ personal histories, experiences, and research, the exhibition traces the complex intersections of patriarchal violence, capitalist labour exploitation, and (neo)colonial plunder.
Artists: Fitri DK (ID), Dian Septi Trisnanti (ID), Tamarra (ID), Marie Civikov (NL), Nabila Ernada (NL/ID), Ramal Karmarama (ID), Rizqita Naherta, (NL/ID), Nynke Deinema (NL), Clementine Oomes (NL), Vera Kersting (NL)
Essentialist ideas of gendered labour in the archipelago were introduced by both native feudal and Dutch colonial systems, further enshrined in the 20th century by the fascist New Order in their policies of ibuisme negara (state motherhood).
Existing in the margins
Throughout shifts in power, gender became consolidated within the binary of the male worker and female homemaker, condemning all those who exist in the margins—trans* and genderqueer (informal) workers, women farmers and factory workers—to deviant existences. This effectively erased their struggles and concerns in governmental development policies, while continuing to reap the economic benefits of their productive labour.
Bookstores
The exhibition is modelled after Indonesia’s street-side second-hand bookstores, as an ode to its desire to recirculate epistemologies of gendered labour. Through both artistic works and a curated selection of publications, the exhibition urges visitors to examine their own relationship to gender and labour through their engagement with different forms of knowledge.
Part art exhibition, part archive, and part library, It smells of sweat and jasmine threads together a myriad of voices into a chorus that demands fair and just working conditions for those who hold up more than half the sky.
Next-project
It smells of sweat & jasmine stems from CBK Zuidoost’s NEXT project, which gives young artists of color the opportunity to curate an exhibition. This year, CBK Zuidoost is giving Dewi Sofia Laurente the opportunity to gain experience as a curator.
