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Synthetic Love

Tiarma Sirait’s Fashion – Performance

Introductory Note

Rifky Effendy, Art Curator

Tiarma Sirait’s work is unique, anomalous in the practice of contemporary art and fashion designing in Indonesia. She combines performance art and fashion show instead of using the language of fashion for certain purposes as commonly found in artistic practices. Tiarma invents her metaphors; costume, the body, movement, space or the stage and, even, the audience, are adopted to approach issues of contemporary life. She has her intriguing, cynical and sarcastic way. Since early in her career, Tiarma has indeed been interested in mixing various disciplines to present on not less varying arenas. Her work stresses new concepts and experiences regarding costumes for the stage, which may stand as fashion objects, fashion performances, and sculptures as well as installations.

Synthetic Love is her latest work. The handling of the materials and the fashion design offer a new perspective of the contemporary body. In a broader framework, this kind of work features how the body turns to an industrial and technological commodity. Contemporary feminists hold that in capitalistic social life, the (woman) body gets idealized and naturalized into a myth and a common belief constructed by some power network. That is done by cosmetic and fashion products as well as medical and beautification technologies as main agents. One may see Tiarma’s works as reacting to the socio-political conditions encircling the identity of the body.

synthetic

Interestingly, however, Tiarma’s works are far from featuring the issue in any strained atmposheres both visually and thematically. In the contrary, her works have the ability to interact with the viewers actively and sensationally. Her designs are too unusual to be taken as part of fashion; they are more suggestive of peculiar objects in a performance of the theatre of the absurd. In the history of contemporary art, particularly after the conceptual art movement, interactive and sensational art forms are meant to the awareness of the viewers by offering different and clashing values.The borrowing of other artistic forms like fashion designs provides a highly effective means to provoke discussions around the body.