Lost & Found: Sea Chanty Project

Tirta Maya unfolds along three scalar chapters: the cosmic ocean, the womb and the underworld. The title of the work contains multiple meanings. One possible reading is a direct translation of the title from Javanese, which means sacred or still waters. At the same time, the title could also be translated to mean the light (of colours). Light presents itself as a spectrum of coloured wavelengths. Despite its absolute presence, light cannot be touched, contained or solidified.

This elusiveness—where something that seems tangible still slips right through your fingers—is approximated by way of a haunting langgam-dangdut soundtrack, which includes elements of Javanese gamelan, Javanese langgam style and dangdut groove. Distinct moments of call and response have been incorporated into the original composition, whilst its lyrical verses correspond to the three chapters, exploring creation mythologies, otherworldly beings and personal stories that have been passed through the generations. Responding to the call of song, the work features a whirling collage of visuals ranging from text, animated graphics, drawings, and both found and filmed footage. Reflecting this profundity, Tirta Maya builds an imagined archipelagic landscape where the sea becomes a connecting substrate for travel from one chapter to another.

Tirta Maya is the first of three music videos commissioned by the Singapore Art Museum for its Lost & Found: Sea Chanty Project. As the first commission to be released, Tirta Maya sets the stage for viewers to listen and contemplate the timeless universe.

Running a fishery boat is a labour-intensive operation, and out in the high seas and far from home, the seamen who work on these ships are often vulnerable to abuse by their employers. Under harsh and often exploitative working conditions, some workers have died onboard under uncertain or unclear circumstances. When this happens, employers often wrap the deceased’s body in tarpaulin to either store in a large freezer or to dump overboard.

Larung focuses on the predicament of Indonesian seamen. Whilst the word larung means to float or cast something out to sea in the Indonesian language, it has also taken on a second meaning to reference commemorative funerals that the deceased’s colleagues organise. Drawing on the genre of Pop Melayu, Larung features a crooning, melancholic tune that recounts the workers’ experiences of being marooned at sea and their deep desire for the shore. Filmed on a set, Larung recreates an imaginary sea burial with a group of fashionably dressed punk rock-fishermen who move intentionally and in slow motion—their movements choreographed to the rhythms of the song, the sea waves and the weight of their lived realities.

Located in Tanay, Rizal, in the Philippines, the Tinipak River is known for its clear waters and large white, marbled rocks. It is important to the local Dumagat-Remontado indigenous peoples, who see the river as a source of sustenance that is integral to their livelihoods. However, the government plans to build a dam further upstream, which will effectively erase the river from the map and threaten their way of life.

With this precarity in mind, imprint of an imprint of an imprint presents a sonic and visual rendition of the Tinipak River. Field recordings of the river’s waters and surrounding wildlife, such as birds and cicadas, have been incorporated to form what the artist describes as a sound sculpture. With its ever-morphing landscape, the river is an uncontainable living entity. Instead of creating static indexical connections between the river and its visual representations, frottage pieces of the river’s giant rock formations were made collaboratively with a group of Dumagat-Remontados youth. These rock formations are synonymous with the river itself as “Tinipak” means chipped off or chopped up (tipak-tipak) in Tagalog. The 500 textural rubbings in this video trace the river’s contours at this present moment.

All rivers flow into the sea. While the previous two music video commissions in the Sea Chanty Project series foreground the cosmological and the proletariat respectively, imprint of an imprint of an imprint emphasises the cyclical interconnectedness of ecology and community. As the concluding commission in this series, this work brings the three-part initiative full circle.