KP, 2007
7 enamel on steelplates / (7x) 64 x 100 cm / on loan to Gemeente Delft
Location: facade of Museum Nusantara, Delft / Commissioned by Municipality of Delft for CONTOUR 2007 (03.03.07 - 13.05.07)
Photography Guus Ruyven
KELESEH PESEH is an Indonesian word meaning babbling in Dutch or talking gibberish. It used to be a common word in the colonial days of the Dutch East Indies; nowadays nobody seems to remember the reference to the language during the Dutch rule. ‘Keleseh peseh’ is formed by sound imitation: this is how spoken Dutch sounded to the Indonesians. A real tongue twister!
‘Keleseh peseh’ expresses the gap between the two cultures forced upon one another. About one hundred years later it appears as a sign placed at the facade of a Dutch museum collecting Indonesian artefacts. Keleseh peseh articulates the connection between these objects and the reason why it was brought here, along with a stream of migrants and their descendants now living in Holland.
This edition of CONTOUR brings together the work of 111 contemporary Dutch artists and the collection of three Delft museums: Museum Het Prinsenhof,
Museum Nusantara and Museum Lambert van Meerten. Around several focal points, a range of displays move through time, showing common ground between artists in the past and working now.