Born in 1960 in Emmeloord, The Netherlands, Mella Jaarsma studied at Art Academy Minerva in Groningen and then pursued studies at the Art Institute of Jakarta and the Institut Seni Indonesia. Based in Yogyakarta, Jaarsma’s artistic practice challenges any simplistic categorisation as her background situates her in a unique perspective, slipping in and out of the tensions of her environment. Her costume installations use various materials that are charged with metaphoric potencies of race, identity, human nature, sexuality, beliefs, politics and origins.Here, the title references the warrior princess Saraswati derived from the Mahabarata story in response to the racial riots in 1998. SARA is an abbreviation of Suku – Agama Ras (Tribe – Religion – Race), the three issues pertinent to understanding the underlying tensions in Indonesian society. The hanging fingers are direct references to the taboo of pointing one’s fingers at someone else, which engages the viewer by raising the issue of identity politics in Indonesia.
