According to Google’s translation software, Larung means to “float” and “wash away” or alternatively, to “give something to the ocean”. The term is used colloquially as a verb to describe the action undertaken by Hindu and Toaist worshippers in Indonesia and Singapore whenever they make a religious offering to the ocean. With regard to the second part of the artwork’s title, “Bertaut” means “link” as per the translation delivered by Google’s software. The artist deploys this term to allude to an eternal cycle of linkage with the following significance: Whatever you dispose of, eventually comes full circle and returns back to you. The artist is referring to every small act of disposal that eventually metamorphosizes into a larger problem such as the non-biodegradable trash and material that has gradually transformed into this floating island. The work is an installation that is representative of Maryanto’s interest in environmental and socio-political issues.
“Larung” is an action word specific to putting or throwing something into water, or to float. In ancient cultures all over the world, including Javanese culture that Maryanto was inspired by, humans held a strong appreciation and respect for the ocean as they believed everything in nature has a spirit including mountains and trees. The spirits have moods and emotions, hence people put religious objects into the ocean as part of rituals to honour and appease the spirits of the sea. However, in today’s world these traditions are long forgotten by many, and humans have been throwing all kinds of waste ranging from plastic bottles to chemical pollutants into the ocean instead.
Yogyakarta based artist Maryanto wishes to remind us of the important lessons we can learn from the past about our primal relationship with nature, that we have forgotten amidst economic and industrial development. He traces the change in this relationship through the various objects we “larung” into the ocean over time. Maryanto is not merely responding to or raising awareness about environmental issues; it a result of his personal observations of large amounts of trash washed up at the beaches at his hometown. He is making a strong statement through this work, urging viewers to seriously reflect on these very real problems that can no longer be ignored hence the massive size of this piece. In this work, Maryanto chose to focus on human litter, as he wanted to draw our focus away from big companies to our own individual carbon footprints and actions.
“Bertaut” means linked or entangled. It is believed that when you give something good to the ocean it returns the same to you, much like the idea of karma. Hence, the work’s title “Larung Bertaut” captures the concept of how our fates are linked to the ocean. The dark colours and spherical form of the work with protruding beams looks like something out of nightmares. Maryanto creates a sense of tension, from the trash looking as if it is about to burst open from the nets and spillover, like a timebomb moments away from explosion. This reflects our current situation where a series of small things like litter accumulates into something large, and we are at the tipping edge.