Suai Media Space

English Version
6 Agostu 2006 Jen postar iha Arte, Arte hosi Sergio da Costa, Comisaun, Noticias 1 Comentario Editar |

‘Bush telegraph’ iha Suai sai hanesan mei (sonu) ida. Hau hanoin ami iha Suai loron ida tiha ona ba oras (quandu) Sergio mosu mai iha Centru Communidade. Nia lori pintura bot ida tebes maka nia pinta kona ba uma lulik Lautem (Los Palos) no maka nia halon/espera atu faan. Pintura nee naruk meter ida no luan centi-meter 75. Ami hakara liu kultura tradisional Covalima. Lautem dook liu iha loro sae hosi Timor Loro Sae, iha “lafaek nian ulun besik’ ou iha ita nia ‘nai bei nian ulun besik’. Uma lulik Lautem dadi tiha ona simbolu Arquitetura Tradisional Timor nian no hau hanoin tan nee Sergio pinta uma lulik Lautem. Pintura nee caru liu no difisil liu atu hetan fatin bodik tara nian iha uma laran tan nia bot tebes. Ferik Desleigh Kent hosi Belun Suai, maka mos iha Suai durante nee, hasai tiha ona foto ida kona ba pintura nee no ba pintura seluk sira maka rai iha pinta bot nee nian ohak.

[Nota: Clicar ba retratu ida bodik halo mosu sai “gallery”, hotu tiha dada tetek gallery usa butan ‘Next’ no ‘Back’ besik iha leten karuk no kwana]

Maibe Mana Pat Jessen horan impresaun (rasa kagum) tebes ba Sergio nian pintura sira. Tan nee Pat fo commisaun ba Sergio atu halu pintura ida kona ba ema katuas ida kaer manu aman hanesan mosu sai iha pintura uma lulik Lautem nee nian oin (latar muka).

Mana Pat Jessen (Coordenadora Belun Suai nian hosi Port Phillip), Simao Barreto (Coordenador Belun Suai nian hosi Suai) halo tradusaun bodik Sergio (latar muka/primeiru planu no nian belun)
Mana Pat halo discusaun kona ba nian comisaun no husu Sergio atu bele halo pintura kiik hira kona ba juventudu Suai bodik demonstrasaun ba loron exposisaun iha St Kilda. Mana Pat mos husu ba Sergio atu fo aula balu kona ba arte nian bodik juventudu seluk sira iha Suai.

Kraik nee: Sergio halo pintura kona ba Mana Pat nian comisaun (Retratu maka membru YoMaTre hasai).

Mana Desleigh horan imnpressaun tebes (merasa sangat terkesan) no tan nee fo komisaun ba Sergio atau halo pintura ida ba nia nain duuk. Nia fo ba Sergio retratu hosi ema feto ferik ida ho feto nurak ida maka nia hasai tihan iha Suai Loro durante semana nee.

Tetun version
The ‘bush telegraph’ in Suai works like a dream. I think we had been there a day when Sergio turned up at the Community Centre. He had with him a huge painting of a traditional house of Lautem (Los Palos) that he was hoping to sell. It was over a metre high and about .75 of a metre wide, but that wasn’t the reason none of us bought it. We are more interested in the traditional culture of Cova Lima. Lautem is in the far East of East Timor in the “head of the crocodile” if you like. The traditional house of Lautem has become an international symbol of Traditional Timorese Architecture and I guessed that is why Sergio painted that particular style. The fact that it was so big also made it more expensive and more difficult to find a place for it in ones home. This is a photo of it taken by Desleigh Kent ( from the Friends of Suai), who was there, with some other paintings he brought sitting over the base of it.

[Note: Click on a photo to get the ‘gallery’ to pop up then scroll through the gallery using the ‘Next’ and ‘Back’ buttons near the top on the sides.]

Pat Jessen was impressed by his work however and commissioned him to do a painting of an old man holding a rooster as it was depicted in the foreground of the Lautem painting.

Pat Jessen (‘Friends of Suai’ Co-ordinator Pt Phillip), Simao Barretto (‘Friends of Suai Co-ordinator’ in Suai) translating for Sergio (foreground and his friend).

Pat is discussing her commission and asking Sergio of he would do some small portraits of Suai youth for an exhibition to be held in St Kilda and run some art classes for other young people in Suai.

Below: Sergio working on Pat’s commission. (Photograph by YoMaTre members)

The finished painting.
Desleigh was impressed and commissioned one for herself. She gave sergio a photograph of an old woman with a young woman she had taken in Suai Loro that week.

Desleigh, Pat and Annie Sloman checking out the finished work.

[Note: Click on a photo to get the ‘gallery’ to pop up then scroll through the gallery using the ‘Next’ and ‘Back’ buttons near the top on the sides.]

[Show as slideshow]

Portraits of Youth by Sergio (see ‘Portraits of Youth 2000‘ and ‘Portraits 2000‘)

When Pat Jessen wanted artists to paint portraits of the youth of Suai we turned to my friend Sergio da Costa for help. The paintings and drawings on the small canvasses above are his contributions to her project. The project was to provide some paintings of young people in Suai to hang alongside over one thousand portraits painted by youth in Pt Phillip and Obu Japan for the new art gallery inside the new wing of the St Kilda Town Hall.

The images the Australian students have painted of themselves provide a refreshing counterpoint to photographic portraits of youth that are prolific on social networking websites. These painted portraits open up a space in which the concept of identity is more fluid than within photographic self-portraits.

I am waiting on permission from the schools’ art teachers to upload a gallery of the Pt Phillip students’ work.

[Note: Click on a photo to get the ‘gallery’ to pop up then scroll through the gallery using the ‘Next’ and ‘Back’ buttons near the top on the sides.]

Suai Portraits in St Kilda gallery

Obu Portraits from Japan

The portraits from students in Obu are included in the exhibition because of Pt Phillip’s sister city relationship with Obu. My reason for including them is of the link between our three countries due to our history in East Timor in World War 2.

When Sergio heard we were in town he came to see us with a huge painting he had made of a traditional Lautem or Los Palos house in the Eastern most part of East Timor – the head of the crocodile. When he showed that to Pat she commissioned a painting.

[Note: Click on a photo to get the ‘gallery’ to pop up then scroll through the gallery using the ‘Next’ and ‘Back’ buttons near the top on the sides.]

During the hectic time that precedes a trip to Suai I got a phone call from Pat Jessen, (Co-ordinator of the Friends of Suai), to chat about art materials she wanted to take to Suai. She ended up taking some small canvasses, some quality art paper, coloured pencils, charcoal pencils, crayons and oil paints. When she got there Pat enlisted my friend Sergio da Costa to find some artists and these portraits are what they came up with.

All the artists live in the centre of Suai except Atoy who lives in Suai Loro. The first two paintings in the gallery top left are by Atoy. Rumour has it that Atoy studied at Arte Moris (Birth of Art). in Dili for a while. Atoy’s portrait Boy 1 particularly, is embued with the colour and tonal qualities of his environment and I’m sure he has painted his portraits using his friends as live models.

Suai Loro is a lowland area by the beach, about ten to twelve k’s from Suai but the trip is a 40 minute drive from Suai, because the road is deeply deeply rutted and damaged by the hundreds of trips made along it by armoured vehicles in 2000 that left behind potholes that have grown into massive muddy sections of road that remain wet for many days between rains. I first visited Suai Loro at that time with Veronica Pereira. It was devastatingly poor then and still is very poor. The villages are close to the beach overlooking the Timor Sea, near the mangrove swamps , and the houses, built from traditional materials are built high above beautiful deep brown sand, to protect them from flooding.

In Suai Loro people are still living together with houses placed near each other and facing into each other in groups. Simao, the Friends of Suai Chefi told me that the Portuguese introduced straight roads and living alongside roads to East Timor. This kind of change makes a huge social impact but I’m yet to understand what difference it has made in East Timor.

Sergio dashed off his pencil sketch (centre bottom row) in about ten to fifteen minutes while I was watching him when he was first commissioned to do the portraits. Two of the portraits of the young women have been painted from photographs while the first of his in the gallery third from left in the top row above, of the young woman with the blue top, looks a little like his sister Julia, so perhaps Julia modeled for that one. Indrey has sketched they guy who was working as security at the Community Centre and I don’t know who drew the girl on the chair. I will try and find out.

The artists range widely in age. Idrey (I hope I have spelt his name correctly) is about ten or eleven, Sergio and Atoy are both in their twenties.

All the drawings of the massacre were posted on the wall of the Suai Church School on the occasion of the First Anniversary of the Suai Church Massacre.

Coloured Pencil Drawing on Paper (2000)

Coloured Pencil Drawing on Paper (2000)

Coloured Pencil Drawings on Paper (2000)

Coloured Pencil Drawing on Paper (September 2000)

Banner Drawing ( Natalino dos reis Pires 2000). Backdrop for stage for theatre and performance staged for the local and international community on the First Anniversary of the Suai Church Massacre. This drawing is featured in the short documentary The Circle of Stones.

Coloured Pencil Drawing (2000

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