Durga Mahisasuramardini

The artefact

The Durga Mahisasuramardini is a significant and poignant figure of feminine divinity and power in Hindu-Buddhist religions and cultures. Across Southeast Asia, her image became a symbol of moral and spiritual strength, often depicted with multiple arms wielding divine weapons. In Java, Durga was worshipped not only as a fierce warrior but also as a maternal protector, merging local animist and Indian religious traditions into a distinct Javanese form of devotion.
The statue of Durga Mahisasuramardini was crafted during the construction of the Singhasari Temple in East Java, around the early 14th century, under the Singhasari Kingdom. The temple complex combined elements of Hinduism and Buddhism, reflecting the spiritual syncretism of the period. The Durga, carved from volcanic stone, stood in a sacred niche within the temple, serving as both an object of worship and a guardian figure protecting the sanctity of the site.
During the Dutch colonization of the Indonesian archipelago in the early 19th century, the Singhasari Temple became a site of colonial fascination. In 1803, Dutch colonial administrator Nicolaus Engelhard visited the temple and removed several statues, including the Durga, from their sacred context.
The Durga Mahisasuramardini experienced relocation between multiple locations, including Engelhard’s Semarang residence, Bogor in West Java, the Volkenkunde Museum in Leiden, until finally being returned to Indonesia, where it currently resides.

The collaboration

What stood out to us while researching the Durga statue was its contrasting ways of usage between the periods of worship and its looting. From an object of worship, representing a powerful feminine deity, to an object of colonial, male desire, adorning the garden of Engelhard’s residence, merely as a trophy of his conquests. The fact that the Durga is represented by a woman is also what stood out quite heavily, tying it to the male gaze of the Dutch colonizers. This is what inspired us to explore the possibility of a narrative that follows a journey of a woman who has been displaced, controlled and manhandled, drawing parallels between the journey of the Durga and the mistreatment of women throughout history and today.

With Adeline’s experience working with celluloid, she chose this visual approach to represent Durga’s point of view. Through collaboration with dancers and crew members, the film expands the scope of collaboration, bridging film, visual art, and performance.

With Vladimir’s experiences in fictional storytelling, character creation, aesthetics, and movement language, together with Adeline, they explored the direction of which the film could head. Questions arose – what is the movement language that could signify the Durga’s unique posing? What kind of clothes should she wear, focusing on tradition and timelessness, to portray the constancy of the narrative? In what way should the journey of the Durga be translated onto the screen, through the lens of a modern Indonesian woman?

Together, they answered these questions through many conversations and collaborative efforts into forming the first version of the script, sketching out what the possibilities of the film could be.

Artists

Dyantini Adeline

Dyantini Adeline (26) is a female artist and filmmaker who lives in Jakarta Indonesia. She studied Communication in University of Indonesia and initiated a videomaking collective named The Youngrrr. In 2012, she made several video arts and experimental films with The Youngrrr which were presented in major art events and festivals around the world; among them are 64th Berlinale International Film Festival, European Media Art Festival (2014) and Jakarta Biennale (2015). She also affiliates with Lab Laba Laba, a collective artist which restores, preserves and responds to celluloid archives. 

Vladimir Vidanovski

Vladimir Vidanovski (1996) is a multimedia artist from North Macedonia, whose work deals with the manipulative properties of the image, and how image culture circulates and evolves in unique ways during digital times. He graduated in the photography department in the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

His practice involves building worlds and creating characters through photography, motion imagery, CGI, sound and performance. With this, he tells stories often stemming from his own memories, desires and observations from his Online wanderings. This results in works that question reality by using technological advancements and the vastness of the human mind as motives.

In 2024 he won the Audience Award and Emerging Director award for the short film Two Birds with One Stone at Queer Film Festival Utrecht. In 2021 he was selected and awarded for his graduation work at the 2021 edition of Steenbergen Stipendium in Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam.

The result

The final film follows the initial plan of creating a fictional, choreographed piece in which we reimagine the Durga Mahisasuramardini statue as a physical, moving person. This embodiment aids not only in the translation of the journey of the Durga, but raises relatability and fathomability, through the personification of the statue. This way, the Durga becomes a character that relates greatly to current and historical world orders, where the unjust treatment of women has been prevalent through the eyes of the patriarchy, in connection with colonialism.
Today, the Durga stands in Indonesia as both an artistic testament to Javanese religious syncretism and a reminder of the colonial entanglements that shaped its modern trajectory.

The Durga statue is currently kept at the National Museum of Indonesia. Throughout the process of engaging with her, we found ourselves questioning what is best for her? Where is her true home? These questions invite us to reflect on the world we inhabit today, where countless people are displaced and separated from their homelands. The tragedy that befell Durga mirrors our own collective experience, reminding us that her story is not only about the past, but also about the ongoing condition of being uprooted and the search for belonging.