Reclaiming The Healing Arts of The Ancient ... - Wacana Seni

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70Wacana Seni Journal of Arts Discourse. Jil./Vol.11. 2012symbolises, not only Sita's refusal to be part of the patriarchal legend, but also the need to gothrough the cleansing power of fire, from which a renewed and stronger Sita will emerge.From Sri Asih's point of view however, Sita need not be viewed as refusing to be part of the"legend" – she submitted herself for trial-by-fire, and we will not understand this if we viewthis seeming complicity within the framework of equal sexual rights and sexual liberation.According to Sri Asih, Rama was not acting out of typical male chauvinism. She explainedthat the most important value in Hinduism is the sacredness of the body, and it is demandedboth of females and males. Because spiritual and physical purity go together, Sri Asih wouldnot have respected Sita had she allowed herself to be violated by Rahwana, because she wouldhave lost her spiritual integrity.The faith in Sita's strength resonates in the painting, where Sri Asih shows the topless Sita(in the Balinese style), holding a keris (Indonesian sword). A passage from the art historianAstri Wright is instructive and I will quote her description at length:Sita here is not the tearful, passive abductee on the verge of losing hope sooften encountered in Javanese versions (of the scene). Here, Sita occupiesthe center of the canvas. She is ready for battle, sitting erect on Hanoman'sshoulder, her keris raised and ready in her right hand (although she nolonger needed it now that she is safe with Hanoman), and her left hand indefensive posture enhanced by the dance convention of draping her selendang(shoulder cloth for holding things) between her fingers. She appears tobe giving the monstrously featured white monkey the order to proceed, tocarry her (even if that means touching her) across the waters (Wright 1996:26–27).
71Flaudette May V. DatuinFar from being the hapless victim, Sita had the power and strength of her individual volition.Had she succumbed to Rahwana, it was not because she was helpless and therefore blameless,but because she had somehow spiritually faltered along the way. From a symbol of fragilefemininity and oppression, Sita – in Sri Asih's re-vision – became a symbol of a strong,courageous woman who withstood her ordeal of 14 years, tenaciously guarding her spiritualand physical purity.Thus, when we talk of Sita, we have to bear in mind that body, spirit, mind cannot beseparated; and the social person, specially in Southeast Asia, must be understood, not infragmented ways, or through the sex/gender, mind/body, nature/culture dichotomies that formthe key ordering principles of traditional western thought – both mainstream and feminist.STORY 2: THORANEE AND THE MURAL PAINTERMy second story is about the Thai mural painter Phaptawan Suwannakudt, a pioneer, the firstand until recently, the only woman mural painter in Thailand. Taking over from her fatherPaiboon, the leader of the traditional mural revival in Thailand, after his death, Phaptawangracefully entered a male domain, traditionally off limits to women, and took the lead. Andas American artist Ann Wizer, one of the commentators in the 1999 Women Imaging WomenConference put it: "She's somehow done all of this without rebelling or breaking from thetraditional form of visual narrative…and without losing anything from the long rich history ofThai tradition" (in Datuin 1999). Her subversion also becomes even more significant when wealso take note of the way she persisted in practicing an art form that has a low and peripheralstatus compared to the contemporary and academic "fine" arts practiced by her colleagues.
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