Growing up in the capital city of Indonesia, that is Jakarta, I frequently stumble upon these figures as they stroll around the streets alongside someone that either plays live music or simply blast out a recorded traditional Betawi music. These 2.5 meters tall figures are the icon of Jakarta, they represent the Betawi culture in the way they dress. They usually come in pairs of a man with a red face and a woman with a white face. The body of an ondel-ondel is hollow which allows the performer to get inside and give life to the ondel-ondel. The head is separate to the body and is made out of wood, the performer instead uses a small opening in the part of the chest to see beyond the puppet figure.
Although the head of an ondel-ondel is not meant to cover our face, I want to transform it into a mask to create a sense of engagement between the user and the mask. Historically, ondel-ondel was used to protect the villages from wandering evil spirits with the belief that the people’s ancestors lived in these figures. Nowadays the usage of ondel-ondel has shifted towards economical gains. The performers of ondel-ondel are mostly underprivileged adolescents, they play on this role on the streets in order to collect money and sustain life. Because of these common practices, the ondel-ondel is sometimes linked to poverty issues. Aside from wearing the mask to feel a sense of culture, I also want to be able to understand what those adolescents feel or be in their shoes. I want to be able to discover new ways of seeing the mask, not just as it is.
The next step after researching and deciding on my mask, I drew a rough sketch of the mask from three perspectives (front view, side view, top view) as well as a real life scale for reference when making the wire form.
With the help of my classmate, she layered a coat of alginate over my face to create a mold for the life mask. After the mold was dettached from my face, I poured plaster onto the mold and let it dry. I cleaned the rough textures and overspilling plaster with blades and sand paper.
I carved the wood to fit into the curves of the insides of the mask. Afterwards, I attached the mask onto the wood using plaster.
Using many different sizes of wire, I started filling in the spaces in order to create a wire form that corresponds to my initial drawing.
I placed 3 layers of paper mache over the wire form to act as the base of the mask. Then with sculptamold, I slowly covered the paper mache and built upon forms that would stick out in dimension such as the outline of the eyes, lips, and the little details in the crown.
Initially, I was going to make the mask colorful but then I played around with the real illustration by putting a B&W filter into it, and it surprisingly works better. It gives a visually striking effect and contrast to the colorful feathers around the head. Not only would it appeal visually, but the message that I want to deliver is taken into further extent, which is to address the struggles of underprivileged adolescents trying to get out of their mundane life and performing ondel-ondel in the hopes of aiming for a more colorful life. The monochromatic face represents the realities of their present life, whereas the colorful feathers that grow out from the top of the head symbolizes the desired state of being able to bloom vibrantly.
