Ratu R. Saraswati

ROUTE OF FLOWERS (RUTE BUNGA-BUNGA)
2020-2022
Installation and performance

The artist reads parable stories from “Route of Flowers”, a book that she wrote. Audience gathered around “Parable of the Pilgrims” installation. The installation display a series of photographs taken at De Schreeuw monument, Oosterpark, a city park in Amsterdam East. The photographs capture the flowers dedicated to Samuel Paty, left there on 23 October 2020. Mixed among the flowers are messages left by protesters commemorating Theo van Gogh on 2 November.

 

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Parable of the Pilgrims

In the first year, a woman encounters twenty pilgrims gathered at a monument, covered with flowers in autumn. Three of these pilgrims step forward to lay down their flowers.
These pilgrims speak no parables. Instead, they tear parable pages and spit on them.
She is paralyzed by shock for fifteen seconds. She flees in fear.

 

The second year, she returns and sees ten pilgrims.

 

 

 

 

 

In the ninth year, she sees one pilgrim.

In the tenth year, it is only her.

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If this parable is written on a page, the woman asks you not to tear it.

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Read from the book, page 15.

 

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