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Dreamwork, Art Worlds and Miracles in Malaysia

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Dreamwork, Art Worlds and Miracles in Malaysia World Art ISSN: 2150-0894 (Print) 2150-0908 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwor20 Dreamwork, art worlds and miracles in Malaysia D.S. Farrer To cite this article: D.S. Farrer (2020): Dreamwork, art worlds and miracles in Malaysia, World Art, DOI: 10.1080/21500894.2020.1725103 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2020.1725103 Published online: 24 Feb 2020. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rwor20 World Art, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1080/21500894.2020.1725103 Research Article Dreamwork, art worlds and miracles in Malaysia D.S. Farrer * Palau Community College, Koror, Palau Dreamwork recorded in the Malay art world questions the occult power of artistic agency. As I did participant observation in Malaysia and Singapore, the artist Mohammad Din Mohammad divulged knowledge of Sufi lore, shamanic healing, and Malay martial arts (silat). On a quest to comprehend, discover, create and articulate esoteric skills, secret knowledge and mysterious artifacts, the artist produced fine art paintings, talismanic jewelry and assemblage sculptures. These were to be used in psychic defence, dream incubation, for inspiration, and as medicine. A field site discussion as to whether a reported vision of a mysterious shadow warrior is a true, false, or meaningless dream forms the kernel of a dreamwork dialogue regarding miraculous agency. The artwork raises questions pertaining to sorcery, Islam, agency, and power in Southeast Asia, revealing a political battle of Sufi versus Wahhabi notions in the constitution of Malay modernity. Keywords: agency; art worlds; dreamwork; healing; miracles; power Her Royal Highness Tengku Aminah, gallery owner, art collector, dealer, and titled descendent of Malay royal lineage recounted her dream to the artist-in-residence, Mohammad Din Mohammad (1955–2007, henceforth ‘Mhd Din’) that I recorded during fieldwork in 2003.1 With a shudder Aminah said that during her dream (mimpi), or midnight vision, she heard scraping noises and feared somebody was trying to break in through the window of her private apartment.2 To her amazement the pro- tective figure of a shadow warrior (Panglima Hitam, lit. ‘black comman- der’) leapt down from one of the two paintings mounted on the wall by either side of her bed (Figure 1).3 The next day Aminah narrated the dream to Mhd Din, and her husband, Ali, which I recorded in my role as participant observer. Malaysia is a conservative, majority Malay Muslim society where figurative representation, tattoos, artistic, sculptural, and photographic depictions of human and animal forms are regarded as occult (ghaib) and forbidden (haram). To discuss art, dreams, and mira- cles in an Islamic context is to question their power. Art (seni), dreams, *Email: [email protected] © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2 D.S. Farrer Figure 1. ‘Silat’. Acrylic on canvas, 92 × 123 cm, 1999. and miracles are entwined in the Malay art world, and their analysis engages a broad dialogue as to what they are (ontology), where they are from (nature/God), and how they come to act (agency/power). The conversation following the dream questioned its nature, origin, purpose, meaning, and significance in an interpretative procedure not unlike what Iain Edgar calls ‘dreamwork’4 in ‘Islamic dream cultures’: ‘dreamwork’ being an attempt by a group to make ‘sense’ out of dream imagery ‘nonsense’ (2016, 27, 1995, 1). The Islamic interpretive formula of whether the dream is true, false, or ‘meaningless’/‘unimportant ego (nafs)’ based also applies (Edgar 2016, 100). Central to the dreamwork was the question of the miraculous or magical (sihir, ajaib) source of the artwork’s power. How was this to be understood? Was the apparition sent by God or the Devil? Miracles (keajaiban, ajaib) refer to the evidential proofs of divine power – or sorcery (sihir), because even Shaytan requires World Art 3 Allah’s permission to act. Beyond good and evil, dreamwork encountered in the Malay ‘art world’ lifts the veil on divine/occult agency in artworks (Becker 1982).5 And ‘agency’ begs the question of power. Questions regarding the occult power of art, dreams, and miracles reveal hauntalogical fractures in the ideological and religious constitution of Islam in Malaysia (Edgar 1995, 1; Hollan 2014, 175). This article engages dreamwork from the Malay art world to recast the problem of agency in terms of power. Following Negri (2013), I apprise a dichotomous formation of power as potentia versus potestas, in short, intentionality, agency (potentia) versus legal-bureaucratic structural power (potestas) (Becker 1982; Gell 1998; Edgar 2016). The Spinozan dichotomy of power allows for a reformulation of agency to account for artistic ‘spiritual emanation’, that is, art’s potentia to shape ontological realities (Strassler 2014). A complete summary of the immense literature on agency, dreams, Islam, art, and power is beyond the scope of this essay. Instead I traverse a pathway through an exemplary sample, notably Edgar (2016, 1995), Negri (2013, 1991), Gell (1998), Ingold (2019, 2011), Benjamin (2014), and David and McNiven (2018). Given Spinoza’s([1677] 1996) dual concept of power unfolded in a discussion of Mhd Din’s art it becomes possible to recast ‘the problem of agency’, and better understand the power of art and dreams. The aim of this article, through a discussion of the role of art, dreams, and miracles in the ontological formation of the ‘Malay world’ (alam Melayu), is to reveal the potentia of occult Sufi art as a challenge to the potestas of the dominant Wahhabi ideology.6 To proceed, first I outline the Islamic classification procedures of divine/ occult experience that apply to art, dreams, and miracles in the Malay spiri- tual marketplace. Next, I introduce the artist, and describe his creative process. A disagreement between artist and dealer illustrates the contested nature of gender and sexuality (polygamy/polyandry), legal-rational obli- gations (divine/human), proof (belief/evidence), and legitimacy (miracles/ sorcery), which leads into an outline of Sufism versus Wahhabism in the hegemonic, ideological struggle to define Malay modernity. Central themes in Malay folk religion, including the shadow, dragons, and spiritual coexis- tence (dampingan), are related to acknowledge the convergence of Sufism with Malay and Orang Alsi (aboriginal) cosmologies. The author’sembodied experience of a waterfall ritual is recounted, which further questions the nature of reality, illusions, and consciousness. In conclusion, a reformulation of agency in terms of potentia versus potestas facilitates an understanding of the power of art, dreams, and miracles to challenge (or uphold) the State. Art, dreams and miracles Displaying Mhd Din’s artwork in almost every available space, Aminah and Ali’s exquisite mansion in Kuala Lumpur became ‘Galeri Mystique’.Ali 4 D.S. Farrer fulfilled the role of art dealer, in league with the artist. Aminah said that her cousin had attended art school with Mhd Din, which is how they met and became friends, a couple of years prior to the 2003 exhibition. Sub- sequently, their friendship bloomed into a business relationship.7 Fifty dig- nitaries turned up for the exhibition, entitled, ‘Night of the Secret Wine’, which I filmed in my role as budding visual anthropologist.8 The web of art world social contacts expanded during exhibitions, only to contract again to the central nexus according to fluctuations in the business cycle. In Malaysia, the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of artworks forms a spiritual marketplace in an occult capitalist economy where art, dreams, and miracles help to define the nature of reality, con- sciousness, and truth (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). To reiterate Ziaud- din’s insight: Since the quest for miracles is essentially a desire for a belief in the necessity of spiritual life, the miracles have to be firmly outside the boundaries of rationality and material signs, areas Islam rules firmly within the boundaries of routine normality. So dreams often play an integral part in these miracles (2000, 138; Farrer 2008, 38). It is questionable whether Aminah’s dream visitation from the heroic defending shadow warrior should be considered an outright miracle (kea- jaiban). No visible evidence of attempted burglary was found in the morning. Nevertheless, the appearance of the shadow warrior did seem miraculous (ajaib) in the sense that ajaib also means ‘magic’. Given the animated conversation between the artist and patron (see below), the emic problem raised by the dream concerns its origins and classification, and relates to the mechanism or power of summoning, whether through white (ilmu putih) or black magic (ilmu hitam). Did the dream provide evidence of Mhd Din’s occult arts, where sorceric power provides a medium to summon aid from the unseen realm (ghaib)? Or, adopting Edgar’s(2016, 33) tripartite division, should Aminah’s dream/vision simply be regarded as a ‘true dream’ from God, a ‘false dream’ from the Devil, or as meaningless?9 No straightforward answer to the question of good and evil in divine/occult art is presented here; nor can the whole meaning down to the last secret of the dream be finally resolved (Freud [1955] 2010, 377). The contested nature of dreamwork and miracles in the Malay artworld provides a lens, however, through which to focus upon power, potentia versus potestas, to reformulate the mysterious ‘agency’ of artworks. First, a brief introduction of the artist’s background and philosophy is necessary to situate the creative process, before turning to his disagree- ment with the art dealer. World Art 5 Mohammad Din Mohammad Slim, youthfully middle-aged with shoulder length black hair and a wispy beard Mhd Din struck the image of the fifteenth century Malay warriors displayed in paintings in the Melaka History and Ethnography Museum.
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