JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHER PROMOTES ENDANGERED INTANGIBLE HERITAGES: INDONESIAN WAYANG
It is dusk, and the rich melodic rhythms of the gamelan and the ethereal
female voices of the pesinden (female singers) echo across the peaceful
village in Central Java, Indonesia.
(WRITTEN BY KAREN SMITH, UNIMA RESEARCH COMMISSION AND MEMBER OF UNIMA-USA BOARD OF TRUSTEES.)
The music signals the commencement of the traditional Indonesian shadow performance, Wayang Kulit Purwa. Throughout the day, the entire village had come together for the bersih desa, a purification ritual held annually during the rice harvest season. The evening’s wayang will now cap the ceremony. The excited villagers gather to enjoy the performance that will continue throughout the night, an eight-hour marathon of non-stop drama, romance, boisterous comedy, vigorous battle scenes, and ethical resolution. Seated among the village audience is a Japanese photographer, a specially invited guest to witness and capture the bersih desa ceremony and the wayang that now is about to begin...
Yoshi Shimizu, a Japanese documentary photographer currently residing in Europe, spent one month last year travelling throughout Indonesia photographing the various regional forms of wayang. This April 2008, a collection of Yoshi Shimizu’s photographic images from that trip will be displayed at a month-long photo exhibition at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland.
Visiting Java, Bali, Sumatra and Kalimantan, Shimizu’s camera captured the magic and artistry of wayang and the forms’ many practitioners. Welcomed everywhere he went in Indonesia, Shimizu was invited into rural and urban communities to experience the world of wayang, to witness the traditional shadow theatre, the three-dimensional rod puppet theatre, the human dance-drama, and the music that accompanies these performances. Shimizu interviewed dalangs (puppeteers), the master puppeteers, and the musicians, singers, teachers, and puppet and instrument makers. Indonesian wayang has a long and rich tradition, fulfilling the community’s need for ceremony, education, entertainment, and spiritual uplift. Today, however, while some wayang forms endure and continue to develop, there are forms that are threatened with extinction.
His work with Indonesian wayang represents the first of a series of Shimizu’s photographic documentary of the world’s Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). While oral intangible heritages, such as performing arts, epics, oral histories and languages, constitute the core of traditional culture, many of these are not accessible to the outside world and many of these traditions are at risk of extinction. The principal aims of Shimizu’s “The Intangible Cultural Heritage Photographic Project”, therefore, are to capture and then safeguard and promote these valuable traditions by providing audiences around the world with the opportunity to experience and understand the rich diversity of human culture.
Commenting on this project, Shimizu says, “The destruction of these masterpieces would be an immeasurable loss for the whole of humankind. The challenging aspect of this project is to create tangible records from intangible subjects through photographic documentation.”
Shimizu began his photographic career in New York City in the late 1980’s. He has travelled throughout the world for a wide range of clients, covering the fates of exchild combatants in Sierra Leone, street children in Kenya, indigenous tribes in India, and victims of the Asian tsunami among others. His abiding empathy for his subjects is reflected in the compelling humanity of his photography. His work can be viewed at http://www.yoshi-shimizu.com.
Shimizu’s current personal project is endorsed by UNESCO and receives technical support from Canon Europe. It is guided by a team of dedicated individuals, associations and professionals, who share the concern for the fragility of oral and intangible cultural heritages and the desire to preserve them. The project is funded by donations from private individuals, and securing funds to continue the project is one of many challenges Shimizu faces.
The high quality photographic images that Yoshi Shimizu has produced for the project will be donated to the media documentation centre of UNESCO in Paris and to those associations and individuals that have assisted him with the project, to be used in their publications, exhibitions and programmes to promote and safeguard oral intangible cultural heritage.
