"With Every Breath, I Build the House": Marintan Sirait's Building a House and Its Performative Quality

Abstract

In this paper, I will address the topic of identity in relation to performativity by looking across political histories and ritualistic practices as reflected in the artistic practice of Marintan Sirait, who is one of Indonesia’s few pioneering female performance artists. I argue that her seminal installation/performance piece Building a House from the 1990s is an articulation of—but also resistance to—the experience of alienation during the regime of the New Order. By addressing the New Order’s political histories and examining Marintan’s implicit notion of the “body as tool”, I will show how the artist envisions notions of naturalness and spirituality as embodied acts of resistance. I will conclude that Building a House reflects an artistic interest that is less concerned with the representation of identity and rather explores embodied practices to generate a performative aesthetic that builds on an ephemeral understanding of materiality and dynamic processes of embodiment.