HONOUR IN MY ART – A Verbatim-Style Interview with Aisyiyah Prahastono

By Zena Haddad

Image by Bill Reda

Aisyiyah Prahastono is 17 years old and is known by some people as Stono. She is fresh out of high school and currently at TAFE studying Music Industry Technical Production. Her hobbies and interests are music, literature, philosophy, theatre, and food. After her studies she plans on travelling to the USA and Europe.

Do you have a hero?
I don’t really have a hero in the sense. I have lots and lots of people I look up to but I don’t know if I would call them a hero because I don’t know if I like that term or not. It seems like it’s putting people above other people.

Who do you look up to most then?
I look up to my mother. I think most people who have a good relationship with their parents or their mum naturally look up to them. She’s been through a lot in her life and that, and I haven’t been through half the things that she did when I was her age. To think that she went through all that and came out raising me and raising my brothers and my sister, it’s just amazing. She lives by herself now in Indonesia and for her to survive like that in an underdeveloped country on her own when she’s used to being in Australia, she’s been there for six years now and going so well and I’m so proud of her.

Who’s your favourite villain?
That’s a hard one. I really like the Green Goblin from Spider-Man. Just because he’s gross and he’s really vicious, then again he’s just so, really weak at the same time.

What is honour to you?

I think honour is a very personal thing. It’s something within yourself that you sort of learn how to carry. I think because you can easily get a certificate from somewhere and you can be like ‘oh yeah I got a certificate,’ but if you don’t truly believe that you worked hard for that then what is honour then? I guess there is a fine line between honour and arrogance and stuff like that, if you can find your feet and find who you really are, and then I think honour becomes more sentimental.

Can you tell me a story when you felt honour?
I don’t think I’ve felt honour before, the biggest thing I’ve felt was when I played in this show at Jura Bookshop in Petersham, it was for a benefit, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it but its called Food Not Bombs. It’s a group that gives out free food, it’s really awesome. That’s not the end of, I won’t get into it; but I played with a band and I played alongside like ten other musicians or something like that. I just loved so much and being side along with them was like a real big honour for me, and like when I played everyone was really attentive, it’s just really, everyone was there for the music and I felt like people were actually listening, and to me it felt like such an honourable moment as I was playing to people that want to listen rather than forcing it down people’s throats.

How does music feel?
It’s pretty indescribable. It’s really comforting because when you play music it’s something that you feel secure about and when you have people attentively looking at you, listening, you can tell they have their ears open. It’s empowering, definitely empowering. I also played Reclaim the Night in Bankstown at Paul Keating Park and that was empowering as well, people cheering and a lady came up to me and she was like ‘that was so beautiful’ and like, she was just so genuine about it and that almost made me cry. You know, just simple things like that to me fill me up with honour.

What is shame?
It’s funny because we always talk about when we are at TAFE and one person does something really embarrassing then someone calls out ‘oh shame!!’  So I just find things funny all the time, but shame I guess it’s sort of different to embarrassment. I think shame is a lot more serious then that, I don’t know if I’ve ever really felt it, like felt really ashamed of myself. I think maybe a couple of times in school, haven’t stood up for myself and let people walk all over me but I think I’ve felt shameful then, you know where is your, like do you believe in yourself and that’s a big part of honour and shame thing, like believing in yourself.

Can you tell me a story where you felt shame?
Probably just like when a teacher told me off for something that is completely ridiculous, because we had that a lot at our school. We had rules that were just stupid I think. I would get told off for like, walking around when I’m not in class when it was like before school with an iPod in and because it was in school with an iPod they like tell me off, we’re apparently not even supposed to take them to school. They’re like, ‘if it gets stolen then we get responsible for it’. I’d get told off for like wearing a black shirt underneath our uniform because we were only suppose to wear white, just those kinds of things. And I wouldn’t be able to fight back at some times, a lot of the times I did argue back and I was like ‘oh ok sorry’, and walked off and then realised, hang on that was a moment where I should’ve said something, this can’t keep going on, they cant keep stepping on kids ‘cause they have power.

How did you use to deal with shame?
I don’t know if I really did deal with it. I think if you constantly dwell on shame then you don’t really get anywhere. Like, I’ve learnt that I don’t need my pass to keep dragging me down, so many things that I wanted to do and I was just like, I don’t wanna make that mistake again, but it’s like, well if you do it a different way and you learn and you don’t necessarily make a mistake in the end, if you do, then that’s another learning curve.

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