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BASINS
Collection:CSM Museum & Study Collection
Date: May 2022
Artist: Victoria Kosasieputri
Medium: Filmed performance and hand written scroll of tracing paper used in the performance.
Object number: MISC.2023.72.CC.1-2
DescriptionFilmed performance and hand written scroll from the performance.
Description from the artist:
As Indonesia strived for unification after independence, strict gender roles were imposed
on state subjects, pressuring them to perform their roles to contribute to a stable,
colonial-free Indonesia. Such enforcement of “kodrat wanita”, or “the essential nature of
women” sanctioned them to maternal piety, putting the needs of the family and nation
before their own. Now, with the recent resurgence of feminism and female
empowerment, I explore the reclamation of motherhood to be used as a tool for
empowerment, and whether that may pose any problems.
In BASINS, a letter addressed to a “Daughter” is read aloud as water slowly trickles down
onto the artist. An act of purification, yet also an act of repression, BASINS is a
performance that publicises the passing of a family’s trauma from generation to
generation—a recycling of sins between mother, daughter, and future daughters.
Through this performance I discover that, by wanting to protect their daughters from
what they have experienced, the mother imparts a burden on the daughter, instilling fear
into a life that is yet to come.
The letter read functioned simultaneously and paradoxically—a confession for the
mother as well as advice for the daughter. With this, the mother is alleviated of her sins,
the burden and trauma passed down to the next generation, putting forth the question—
how much does maternal love derive from a mother’s duty to a greater faith, and how
much is it unconditional?
Description from the artist:
As Indonesia strived for unification after independence, strict gender roles were imposed
on state subjects, pressuring them to perform their roles to contribute to a stable,
colonial-free Indonesia. Such enforcement of “kodrat wanita”, or “the essential nature of
women” sanctioned them to maternal piety, putting the needs of the family and nation
before their own. Now, with the recent resurgence of feminism and female
empowerment, I explore the reclamation of motherhood to be used as a tool for
empowerment, and whether that may pose any problems.
In BASINS, a letter addressed to a “Daughter” is read aloud as water slowly trickles down
onto the artist. An act of purification, yet also an act of repression, BASINS is a
performance that publicises the passing of a family’s trauma from generation to
generation—a recycling of sins between mother, daughter, and future daughters.
Through this performance I discover that, by wanting to protect their daughters from
what they have experienced, the mother imparts a burden on the daughter, instilling fear
into a life that is yet to come.
The letter read functioned simultaneously and paradoxically—a confession for the
mother as well as advice for the daughter. With this, the mother is alleviated of her sins,
the burden and trauma passed down to the next generation, putting forth the question—
how much does maternal love derive from a mother’s duty to a greater faith, and how
much is it unconditional?