OVER installation/performance by Julie Laffin with Ivana Stojakovic. The Jakarta Biennale #14, Jakarta Indonesia. All photos on this page were generously provided by © 2012 Dita Alangkara, Jakarta. All rights reserved.

In January 2012 my performance piece Overwas launched in north Jakarta as part of the Jakarta Biennale #14 Maximum City-Survive or Escape Exhibition. Though I created the piece (or perhaps more accurately, re-created it based on an earlier work with the same title from 1996), I was unable to travel and perform it due to my disabling, environmental illness. I was fortunate to discover, with the help of the biennale curatorial team, the perfect solution; Serbian artist, Ivana Stojakovic, of Bandung Indonesia would perform the piece in my stead. The site of the installation was the Ancol Monument. While Ivana was silently present wearing the 8.5 meter dress, my voice was heard through audio speakers delivering a list of looped words often ascribed to feminine excess: oversensitive, overemotional, overdone, etc. Hearing the sound of my voice gave me presence, despite my physical absence.

The dress was made of silk dupioni and nylon tethers used to attach it to the monument walls. It became volumetric with the help of the ocean winds but gratefully the heavy monsoon winds and rain that visited Jarkarta earlier that day had passed by the time the piece went up. According to my contacts in Jakarta, a local shaman was contracted to keep the anticipated inclement weather at bay during the actual performance.

Very special thanks to Dita Alangkara, Bambang Asrini Wdjnarko, Dudy D'Agoesta, Deden Bulqini, Ivana Stojakovic, Dan Godston BorderBend Arts Collective-Chicago, Dawn Marie Galtieri/Voice of the City, Joann Seastrom, Christine DiThomas, Laurie Schuh, Jennifer Lunden, Anne Elizabeth, Jennifer Natalya  Fink, Sarah Figlio, Sheri Reda and Jennifer Mills.

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