Ub-O, video-installation with soundscape (loop)

 

Three-piece song, about carrying and balancing, about life and death

In former times, traditionally in Moluccan culture, ‘Ub-O’ has been sung during fishing to seduce the fishes, to cradle a crying child and to honour the ancestors. Nowadays, though, because of the mystical loaded meaning, this last third fragment will be sing sparely, not even for special family occasions.

A connection is established with the carrying of the son and the images of the Holy Mother who carries her dead son, called the ‘Piëta’. Likewise from war photography a recognizable image.  A woman’s voice sings fragments from Dido’s Lament (H. Purcell) to which compassion is requested and refers to the bearing and transmission of fate and original sin from generation to generation.
The sound-scape connects the 3 videos onto one narrative. This 3-screen frame story contains an ambiguity in which beauty and tragedy in the broadest sense of the word is shown. History and actuality together gives shape to the universal story about fertility, birth and death, original sin, tradition, culture and religion and it displays the endeavour towards rapprochement and connection.

Carrying, balancing, presenting, bringing and showing is one of the starting points for the video-installation ‘Ub-O’
A son of the third generation is carried by Moluccan men of the second generation. Very slowly, the group walks forward, the camera recedes the distance remains. By the forwardly moving the group is be forced to keep balance for each other and the body they carry, or is the one they carry the cause of their movement?
The singer, a first generation Moluccan man, sings ‘Djaring dengan kapata’ that narrates about fishing and throwing out the nets.
The recording in the nutmeg plantation on the Moluccan isle of Haruku shows the peeling of a nutmeg with a machete. The red foil ‘flowers’ in the men’s rough hand, the fresh nut displayed in the other hand was once the reason for the colonisation of the Moluccan Archipelago, with a dramatic history as result
Unwrinkled and virgin, the source, an underground water basin,

 

Producer, concept, execution: Juul Sadée
Video/camera: Juul Sadée water basin & Ance, Daniel van Hauten/vanhautenfilm, men
Video/audio editing: Juul Sadée
Sound engineering: Lucas Kramer
Singing coach Cecile Schouten
Singers: Grandfather Bantji Matulessy, Juul Sadée

Performers: Elby Saija, Daud Titahena , Wesley Latuhihin , Jery Luhulima, Sam Abraham, William Makatita, Anton Paays, Djehosua Sahetapy , Anis Simaela , Frans Pattiwael, Jan Pattiwael, Jonathan Kaitjily, Djoshua Kaitjily, Max Hehalatu

Special thanks to: Ance en Ina Nahamury, their families, families Tatipatta en Sinay, Willem Matulessy, Naomy Waelauruw-Matulessy
Co-operation with: Foundation Moetiara Maloekoe, Foundation Video-Power
Made possible by: Bonnefanten Museum, Foundation Moetiara Maloekoe, Brentjens building products Gronsveld, Tout Maastricht
Thanks to: Winfried Kramer, Anis Simaela, Sportschool Zenden Maastricht, Bernard Lievegoed school Maastricht

 

‘Ub-O’ is a satellite project during Musica Sacra Festival Theatre a/h Vrijthof called ‘The Road’ shown at Bonnefanten Museum Maastricht
Symultaneous, the sculpture Jiwa was shown at Theatre a/h Vrijthof and the performance ‘Ikatan’ at Our Lady Basilica, Maastricht.

‘Ub-O’ is part of the ‘Archipelago’ program.
‘Archipelago’ is a 'social sculpture' and contains sculptures, multi-media installations and performances. There is a close co-operation with Catoke Kramer, Lucas Kramer and Foundation Moetiara Maloekoe. Archipelago shows questions about inter-human relations and uses the Moluccan history and their story as tool to display the universal story about clashing cultures and intolerance in addition to the reconciliation efforts.

‘What unites and what divides us and what path are we willing to walk herein’ is the question from where Juul Sadée, Catoke Kramer and Lucas Kramer start.