Story of Lake Limboto portrayed through Iwan Yusuf s painting 30th January 2021
A painting titled AKAD by artist Iwan Yusuf exhibited around Gorontalo in 2020. (Debby Mano)
This traveling exhibition program offers an extraordinary inner experience for us that we never exist without doing anything The painting AKAD by Iwan Yusuf, a Gorontalo-born painter, evokes a gush of emotions, admiration, and sadness.
The canvas, measuring 130 x 178 centimeters, presents a game of oil paint, with a palette knife and brush strokes.
Looking closer, this painting bears resemblance to a wooden embossed pattern, with blue and red paint peeling off hither and thither.
Some people will immediately gather that it is a type of boat, albeit in the form of two interlocking rings.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of life, including the lives of female workers.
My (Kanti Pertiwi) yet-to-be-published research shows Indonesian female workers have faced similar challenges. Interviews with 96 female office workers aged between 20 and 50, conducted over June, July and August last year, found the mental burden on working women grew during the pandemic.
The situation was worse for women working in masculine office cultures, where male perspectives were promoted and women’s needs sidelined or ignored. These offices represent what we call masculine organisations.
A growing mental burden
Nearly half of Indonesia’s population are women but the female workforce participation rate is still low, at 53% in 2019. This means that of all women of working age, only half are actually working. Nearly 40% of female workers work in the formal sector, including office workers.