Mr Handoko started X-tremes Arts to help people appreciate and value reptiles

Mr Handoko (above left holding a microphone and a snake), owns a reptile shop on the fourth floor of Ramayana Shopping Mall in Denpasar, Bali.  After seeing his new project X-Treme Arts in action at Kuta Karnival on 22 September 2009 I arranged an interview with him to find out more about the initiative.  

He is a reptile lover with a mission to help people appreciate and value the feared animal.  He says that people often fear and destroy reptiles unnecessarily, which can have devastating consequences for the environment and humanity in general.  As an example he points out that the snake Ratikulas, which lives in Bali, eats a lot of rats which is good for rice fields and food crops.  But recently, people have been killing the snake in large numbers which caused a rat epidemic.  The consequence was that the authorities had to take urgent actions to deal with the problem by organising rat catching initiatives and public burning of hundreds of thousands of the pest animal.  He firmly believes that appreciating and loving animals considered to be a danger to people can make a positive contribution to the world environment.

X-Treme Arts involves the use of skilled artists to paint figures of dangerous animals on human bodies and then placing live animals on the body to take photographs. Although snake is the predominant animal used the group also has baby crocodiles, tarantulas and other species. The collection of the group’s snake species is also quite large. Besides Mr Handoko’s own collection of snakes and other reptiles the initiative involves about twenty five other snake and reptile lovers and the number is growing.

The X-Treme Arts project was launched on 20 July 2009 at the Nirmala Hotel in Denpasar. Currently the project has four artists and six models and since the launch the group has been busy promoting the new art to the people. All the six models are females and the artists are males although this will change with the development of the project. A reptile lover club has been set up recently to complement and support the arts initiative. It is called Snake Pit Club and has twenty five members all of whom own reptile themselves. They meet once a week in a public place and encourage people to come near the snakes, touch and hold them.

X-Treme Arts had a presence on on the beach on every day of the Kuta Karnival 2009, held during 19 and 27 September 2009. It was a delight watching the models being painted, curious people looking to see what was going on and some joining in by touching and holding the animals. During one visit, while many people were taking pictures with a baby crocodile the reptile closed its jaws on one finger of a member of the group and did not want to let it go. Although there was some blood pouring out from the finger of the guy involved he started to gently rub and stroke the neck of the animal and you could see the love in his face, just like a parent giving love to a human.  Eventually they had to use a metal instrument to slowly open the upper and lower jaws to release the guy’s finger.

If you want to find out more about X-Treme Arts you can contact Mr Handoko on +628873601214, jaceyhan@gmail.com. www.balianimallicence.blogspot.com