Back in the mid-nineteen twenties, artist Leonard Suryajaya’s paternal grandfather fled from communist China to Indonesia, a country that was still under centuries-old Dutch colonial rule. His grandfather’s relocation was, above all, a chance at a better life, for him and eventually for the rest of his family back in China. Decades later, Indonesia’s revolution against the Dutch gained them independence and, at last, they became a free state. Fast forward to the mid-sixties: the Cold War takes hold, and as a consequence of a coup in the country, a campaign to wipe out Communist party officials and sympathisers in Indonesia begins. One sure way of being identified as a communist was to look or be Chinese. This meant that Suryajaya’s parents and family had to assimilate and become other people. They had to change their names; they had to hide their Chineseness; they needed to align their identities with those of the Indonesians, or at least with anything other than Chinese. And in part, Leonard Suryajaya’s name and identity is a result of this upheaval.
Image description: A portrait of the artist’s mother looking directly into the camera. She wears layers of necklaces, bracelets, hair clips, broaches, rings, and bags while standing in front of a colourful, floral background. A hand extends into frame raising a bag of milk with a straw to her mouth.
In 1998, as an outcome of a new resurgent uprising targeted towards Chinese communities in Indonesia, Leonard and his family had to flee the country. They took shelter with relatives in Malaysia until the danger subsided. Growing up, relocating overseas seemed to be an inevitability. His parents wanted a better life for him and his sister, and that better life was elsewhere. Suryajaya had aspirations to work in the movie industry, and after being accepted to post-secondary in California for theatre studies, he saw a chance at a new beginning.
America offered the great promise of a different life. During his flight to this new life, Suryajaya turned eighteen. This fresh start was inescapably inflected with his turbulent past experiences, and the disorientation that comes from being displaced—away from family and familiarity. It wasn’t until his second degree in visual arts that this anxiety-addled headspace manifested in his photographic work. This frame of mind was coupled with Suryajaya’s debilitating fear of revealing his queer sexuality, especially to his family back in Indonesia. Suryajaya experienced persistent fears of worst-case scenarios if he was found out: banishment and permanently losing contact with his family. Suryajaya describes his impetus for creating his images as a desire to make physical the dreams and nightmares that occupy him, and transform them into something hospitable.
Whenever Suryajaya visited his family in Indonesia, he would create set designs replete with visual references of home, and have his parents, siblings, cousins, and neighbours animate them with their presence. He’d tell them the images from the shoots were for school assignments: a means of practising his lighting techniques and familiarising himself with his camera’s capabilities. If they wanted him to succeed in school and receive perfect A’s, they would have to support him by participating in his effervescent creations. But even more importantly, community was an enactment of a utopian fantasy, one of bringing his family together in an unguarded communal activity of play. These sets and the photos he generated out of them were a way to preserve as much detail of home as possible in case he leaves and never returns. This decision-making came from a state of mind undergirded by a history of displacement against his will. It is also a predisposition fed by the paralysing fear of being disowned by a family living in a conservative Indonesia, one who could end up in danger for raising a queer family member. This dual force of creative ambition and aching wounds are a significant part of what constitutes Suryajaya as a person and, by extension, what fuels his kaleidoscopic dream world.
In a heartwarming handheld video entitled Mom in Chicago (2015), a piece unlike his meticulously defined photo tableaus, Suryajaya confronts his mother about his sexuality. He hands her a microphone as if in a pop-up TV show interview. Speaking in Indonesian, he proceeds to ask her a series of questions while zooming in slowly on her face. He asks in a casual voice: “Are you ashamed of me? What do you think of Peter?” (Peter is Suryajaya’s long-time life partner, collaborator, and frequent figure in his photographs. In the video, Peter is in the background with his headphones on). “If he gets me a green card, would you agree?” Suryajaya asks. His mother begins to tear up as she tries to give responses to his questions. She looks away from him into the distance as she speaks. “Honestly, I’d prefer you be with a woman…but it’s your own decision,” she says as part of her response. “Life here, you need a companion…all I ask is you be a good person,” she advises and becomes silent before the video fades out. There’s another version of this video directed at Suryajaya’s sister, further anchoring his elaborate dreamscapes in his reality. These interviews provide backstage access to the multiple conflicting perspectives, identities, and particularities living in his photographs.
Image description: Four members of the artist’s family wear cream coloured bodysuits and surround the artist’s partner, Peter, as he lays upside-down in a leopard print bodysuit with wide eyes. All five people wear mouthpieces that keep their lips pulled back and expose their teeth. The artist’s sister holds a leopard print fan toward Peter.
Leonard was born in the summer, and in true Leo fashion, everyone is welcome on set. As his world continues to expand, so too does the roster of participants who animate his images. During the first wave of the pandemic, Leonard was offered a commission by The New York Times. Suryajaya was eager to reconnect with his community after protracted lockdowns so he took this opportunity to reach out to friends, neighbours, and acquaintances from the gym. Even within the commission’s restrictions, he produced outcomes that reflect his distinctively visually opulent scenes and capacity to hold space for both pain and possibility.
In his first solo exhibition in Canada at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg, Suryajaya will be engaging the communities in Winnipeg as part of an immersive installation. This past February, Suryajaya visited Winnipeg ahead of his forthcoming spring exhibition. Working directly with members of the community, he conducted multi-day free studio portrait sessions for anyone interested. He provided participants copies of the portraits either for their social media profiles, professional headshots or whatever they chose to use it for. These portraits will also be included in collage compositions Suryajaya will design into his final gallery presentation. This new work is a thoughtful means to make space for the public and to see themselves, and their neighbours, reflected in the gallery space.
Before he arrived in town, Suryajaya made time for a conversation and to reflect on the trajectory of his artistic practice. With sincere generosity, Suryajaya shared his journey and growth as artist and a person, earnestly considering each question before responding. Among other things, we discuss the visual fullness of this work, camp, humour, his increasing confidence in his own impulses, and the trust he’s developed to explore them.
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Luther Konadu: One readily apparent feature of the majority of your photographs is their visual fullness. They are often constituted by an abundance of detail for the viewer to see and take in: colours, form, props, textures, fabrics, people, gestures, etc. Space isn’t casually wasted. And it has only become this way over time. Can you track how and why this has become so over time?
Leonard Suryajaya: So much of that is about me trying to visualise the way I process things and the ways my mind works. I learned I have been trying to communicate my fears and anxieties, and how consumed I am with them. I’m at an age and maturity where I can look back and see that I was taking in a lot of information that I didn’t know how to fully communicate with words. All of these thoughts just occupied me. It was so engulfing; it took over me. Now I can look back and say that was my anxiety. That’s what’s so great about making art and learning about myself in the process.
I use space in my work as a way to communicate this fullness of an experience I was going through: the feelings, the senses, and the thoughts. I saw the people, the patterns, objects, and the frame as ways to render the image in my head, which I still don’t know how to simplify. The best way I can communicate is using my energy, using my body, my calories, and putting things down one by one, going back to the camera, looking back, reflecting, making decisions, making alterations, and through that, I can claim my power.
Image description: Jean, her daughters, and their pets, sit at a dining room table in a room full of important objects from their home. The table holds blenders, juicers, various fruits and vegetables, and laptops. Other objects visible in the room include: connect-four, crocheted afghans, quilts, laundry detergent, bleach, disinfectant wipes, origami, and plants.
Konadu: It’s interesting that you use the word “simplify,” because looking at your photos, I did wonder if the photos ever fulfil your most desired vision of the spaces you create. Although it appears maximal, or “full” as I previously described, is it ever enough?
Suryajaya: I think of each photo as showing my layers, showing my levels of intensities and different volumes. I want to invite viewers into an experience. Not everything in one body of work is always turned all the way up. I like to juxtapose and allow for breaks in between. I think I am just as intuitive as I am deliberate in the way that I construct the fullness of each photograph. But no, it will never be enough; there’s always more than what each photograph can contain.
Konadu: Speaking of being deliberate—from looking at several images of your work, I see you partly as a choreographer. There’s often people in your work gesturing in a synchronous and rhythmic way just like the way a dance choreographer will plan out a dance routine with their dancers. Although your images are still, there remains a lot of body movement that, for me, relates a lot to a cast performance. Can you talk about how bodies appear in your work, how you compose or coordinate their gestures, what you are looking for, and why they appear in the positions they do?
Suryajaya: For the record, I have a theatre degree. I pull from my theatre training and my understanding of movement, intention, etc. It really is that theatre background that allows me to approach image making in a more dynamic way.
I think of my frame as a stage. I set up the ingredients, props, set design, and when I invite people in, the stage gets activated. So I have to figure out how the people interact with the ingredients/data I am presenting. Often, I get inspiration from them. A lot of my subjects are friends and family. Because I already know the person, working together becomes collaborative and more about the excitement of the exact moment we are sharing together. The gesture, their positioning within the frame, is something we figure out together.
I wanted to be a movie director—that’s why I went to theatre school. But I found that photography was so much more intriguing because it’s about stillness—the still image. Photography allows me to condense time into one frame, to communicate the fullness of that experience of trauma, fear, or anxiety.
Konadu: Camp has been used in relation to your work, but to me it seems an insufficient or even reductive label. I think there’s more to it than mere camp. I don’t believe that irony, or visual subversion, plays into your work even—with the excessiveness of the visual language and set design. More so, I relate it more to a surreal world. How do you relate to camp?
Suryajaya: You know, I welcome it. Camp is another way of saying I’m a funny gay person that is also ironic. I might as well just claim it. I don’t mind it. Yes, I can be funny and cynical, but fundamentally it’s my way of expressing disappointment and the limitations of being excluded. I guess you can say it’s my way of questioning and challenging the status quo which doesn’t make space for expressions from minorities like me. I am pretty camp-y.
Konadu: How do you relate to irony? Do you think there’s irony in your work?
Suryajaya: The work is usually a full scope of my thoughts. Something can start off as ironic, and I’ll laugh at it or try to laugh it off, but then it evolves. I will present the messiness as well as the sense of order and harmony in that chaos. It’s never about one thing or the other. It’s about all of it! The good, the bad, the funny, and the tragic. They’re all related and cannot be easily classified into a neat box.
Going back to your first question, sometimes making work is also a means to make new images for myself to witness. Yes, something can start from fear, anxieties, but then the very act of making something happen provides me with opportunities to shift my perspective. It allows different possibilities and new ways of looking at the situation. It is really the way I manage my thoughts and anxieties. It is my way of saying a prayer. I feel so thankful every time I’m able to make work because I feel one with myself and my purpose. Yes, I can be so limited within myself, but with the act of making art, I use my body to create a new, kinder world that I long for. I feel so humbled, and art is my way of saying thanks for being alive in my own self, in my own body.
Konadu: That’s really beautiful.
Suryajaya: [Laughs] Thank you
Image description: Three members of the artist’s family kneel with hands resting on their bent knees. They are wearing Chinese opera makeup and Marvel character bath robes in a room draped with fabric of many colours and patterns. They gaze to the left with serious expressions, while a smiling mask in front of them faces to the right. An arm extends into frame from the right holding a grey bra.
Konadu: I want to talk a bit about your use of cultural objects and consumer goods within your work. They don’t appear like product placement per se, but they seem to be playing a specific function aside from what they would typically be used for, and I think this goes back to the surrealism I mentioned. What function do you think they serve?
Suryajaya: They are my cultural signifiers. They communicate the personality of the people or place in the photograph. If I go to someone’s home and they have Cloroxes all over and they are proud of it, then I’m like: “great, let’s put all of them in the photo” [laughs]. If I go to another friend’s and they say we eat a lot of Cheerios, again, I’m like: “great, I’m going to put that in the photograph.” It’s my way of signifying the characteristics and uniqueness of the time, people, and places that I want to celebrate and remember.
Konadu: … and there’s a lot of improvisation that goes into making the set in this sense?
Suryajaya: Yes, because I work from the inspiration that the subjects/places share with me. I honour that inspiration and celebrate it. I’m not a dictator who seeks to present a narrative from my own absolute selfishness or point of view. More than anything, I seek to create new ways of thinking and possibilities that are grounded in the reality that is available to me. Improvising allows me to feel connected and open to the experience, people, and place. I like making something fantastical from the everyday consumer goods that are all around us.
Konadu: There’s something humorous and absurd about seeing these assortments of objects, be it fruits, pieces of candy, detergent, or Cheerios—in the placements you have them in. And I think they add to that odd and fantastical nature of your sets and images.
Suryajaya: I am very structured when making work but also attuned to my impulses and responsive to the environment I’m in. The humans in my work also bring out different possibilities that I can’t pre-manufacture. I love when mistakes happen despite all my planning and preparation. There’s a photo of my mom with a lazy eye only in that one frame. She wasn’t completely ready when the camera clicked but I was like: “great, that IS the photo!” Because more than communicating, “oh, look how pretty my mom is in the photo,” I get to communicate: “look at my mom standing there with convictions and love for me, no matter how silly/ demanding I am to her.”
Konadu: You also interlace textual components into your work. This includes letters, legal documents, and text messages. How do they assist or function alongside the images?
Suryajaya: It’s one way of grounding the rest of the work in reality and in the time that I’m in. You can look at my work and think, is this a dream, an interpretation, or staging? By putting these texts, which include letters written by my dad or written by my sister to submit to immigration, everything suddenly becomes about real life. It opens up the conversation on why I make some particular images. I make images because I can’t see my family all the time. I only see my family once every few years. This is why I make images of them whenever I see them. I’m always torn between Indonesia and America. I’m not in a flexible position to travel here and there. So when I do see them and spend time with them, I want to spend the most intense quality time with them and make real-life proof of our connection. This is part of why I make photos. The text grounds everything. Yes, there is some sadness, but I don’t want to put out just my sadness. I don’t want to put out images that make me feel disempowered. The reason why I make work is to pull myself up and heal. For Feng Shui, photographs of sad people are not good luck, so I don’t want to make those kinds of photos. Because my background can feel sad and traumatic, when I have the power to create something new, I want to make it a celebration. I want to make it positive, and I want to make it feel hospitable. To make my life feel full.
Luther Konadu is an artist based in Winnipeg, MB (Treaty One Territory).
This article is published in issue 39.1 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue
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