Sculptures and Installations
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Futility of Auto-Salvation · You Remember it in Great Details · Eleison/Absolution · NOWMAN · Dual Loyalty · Urban Korsakoff Cure #01 · Amygdala · Heartbreak Ceramics
Futility of Auto-Salvation
Teak Wood, Terracotta, Soap, Water, Lights,
Glass, Mirror, One-way Mirror, Candle Wax
2019
580 x 580 x 300 mm
The Futility of Auto-Salvation departs from my religious struggles growing up a Christian, where I feel that the rites and doctrines gave me no solution but rather presenting me a chain of seemingly impossible instructions. I attribute my challenges to stay in faith to the nature of ‘Fallen Man’, having purifying and corrupting qualities intermixing in them, each part of it trying to fulfil its inert drive
I do, at the same time, know that no part of Christian salvation is attainable by effort -all granted by grace through faith-, yet I envy and spite the act of those who are truly able to have faith. This results in a perpetual trapped-ness, me, knowing the spiritual doctrine of Grace, but at the same time refuse to rely on, succumb, and trust fully in God and the Church, like the good lamb I ought to be.
This work is thus a mockery towards my own foolish choice to persevere, not in faith, but in the futility of auto-salvation. A dioramic representation of her inner-self manifested in the form of a dodecagonal prism. Twelve soap and soil figures kneeling, partaking in the Sacrament of Penance, slowly melting into the water. Mute suffering in the repetitive cycle of guilt and penitence, the abject-self torturing the holy body, the holy-self torturing the abject body.
You Remember it in Great Details, and You Remember it All Wrong
Fishing Lines, Badminton Strings, Found Ginseng Box, Tailor's Pins, Green Velvet, Beadings
2018
100 x 350 x 1350mm
I created this artwork after a particular early childhood memory back in Indonesia. That one time when I semi-intentionally killed my neighbourhood topiary by placing a parasitic dodders plant on it.
I had always remembered my neighbourhood fondly. Reflecting back as an adult, and actually looking at the historical background of my city Jakarta, the middle-upper class enclosed residential estate I grew up in- how primed and proper it is compared to the bordering kampung, how the demography and socio-economic conditions differ starkly, and how a physical fence actually separates the estate- had stripped my detailed nostalgia from its rose-tinted glasses. I remember it in great details, but I remember it all wrong.
The title for this work came from a quote in Coming Up For Air by George Orwell. My memories are eerily parallel with instances within Orwell’s book; the afternoon walks with a babysitter that was barely older than me, the fenced area, the fishing lines.
'Anak Kompleks' (Estate Kids) don't mingle with 'Anak Kampung' (Prole Kids). They were told not to. There is an unending strain between the two groups; the economically marginalized, and the culturally marginalized. The fence that is built for one to protect their own, is pushing the 'others' away.
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Everything is darker than it seems. The rightful owner of the land was force-evicted to make way for the developer to build middle-upper class 'protected' estates; they now reside outside the fenced areas of residential complexes. There, many dodders grew at the unkempt bushes. The five years old me acts as a messenger and carried those parasitic dodders as a housewarming gifts to the neighbourhood's nicely trimmed shrubs, eating the artificial facade away. Twenty-three years old me weaves fake dodders into a ginseng shape, a concealed aggression in the form of a housewarming gift
Eleison/Absolution
CCTV camera, TV screen, Acrylic sheet, Wood, Fabric, Rattan screen
2017
2400 x 1200 x 2000mm
Eleison is a term taken from a prayer in Catholic Church sacrament, meaning “to have mercy”. The artwork intends to express the artist’s persistent desire to be altruistic both in art and her life. The desire to be objective, right and kind, unbiased, not expecting rewards, free from ulterior motives ironically became her motives in her daily actions. Same applies in her art practice, the masochistic and overly romanticized view towards how art has no set commercial value and is meant to communicate meaningful, socio-political nuances, but yet she never fails to cloud it with personal objective and biases renders a guilty feeling in creating. Being trapped in this loop of ‘wanting to not want’ creates a perpetual feeling of persecution in her life.
Trying to believe that the world is indifferent to how pure she is, indifferent of her, dawns the realization that there are no eternal consequences in this physical world. The realization that no amount of her attempt to be as neutral and right is related to the honesty of her works and life.
This installation, shaped like a confession room is her attempt at receiving absolution from herself, and hopefully for her audience to find absolution for themselves.
NOWMAN: Towards More Effective History Writing
Whiteboard, markers, rack, projection
2017
Dimensions variable
Contribute $10 and get a self-erasing marker, free!
NOWMAN is a fictional marker that I created. Inspired by Katerina Kamprani’s series of artwork The Uncomfortable, NOWMAN MARKER serves the exact opposite of other whiteboard markers
purpose. The marker is attached to a circular whiteboard eraser surrounding the tip of the marker, rendering the writing and recording process useless.
This artwork is created in response to plasticity and subjectivity of history. History has always been clouded by one’s preference, no matter the intention. Partial data such as archaeological findings or traditional customs could be filled in to further strengthen the belief. More often than not, one’s own memory usually does not reflect what actually happens. The brain connects and makes sense of the chain of events that could be the cause of one’s current state of being. Those instances are not necessarily bad, just unavoidable. Furthermore is it possible for a man to exist as a sentient individual without those
histories and memories, no matter how subjective or even untrue it is? Why question history!
NOWMAN MARKER is here as a sarcastic and comical relief for the dilemma in personal and historical
writing
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Dual Loyalty
Installation; Wood, Light, Archival, and Video Projection
2017
2300 x 1100 x 4500 mm
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“Dual Loyalty” is the term often used to describe Christian spirituality in Indonesia and how religion and nationalism are able to overlap in an unexpectedly seamless manner. History of native Christianity and nationalism in Christianity is often unrecorded and overshadowed by how is it brought to Indonesia, through colonialism. Thus being a Christian seemingly become a binary opposition of Indonesian nationalism. Through this archival and installation art, I would like to tell the narrative of native Christianity where it is ingrained within the tradition through a series of adoption and adaptations with the local customs and beliefs, creating a deeper connection rather than just remnants of colonization.
I aim my work to be a physical representation of Christian spirituality and nationalism in Indonesia. Being able to manipulate the audience body without the need for instructions. Furthermore, the ambiguity of the architecture creates a sublime feeling without the need to classify where it is directed at, the nation or transcendental entities. The archival art would further investigate the crossover through church hymn, traditional, and national songs.
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Recollection: Urban Korsakoff Cure #01
Found Objects
2016
1500 x 1500 x 2000 mm
This project was taken from a neurology book I found by the dumpster along with a white dress.
In that book, one of the patients of Krosakoff, a disease where memory fully disintegrates to
the point that gnosis of self and identity is lost. Korsakoff patients tend to build pseudo-identities to
fill up this lack, constantly changing identity every few minutes, along with the pseudo-memory.
The question is, what is a human without memory? Is that person still them self or has he
been de-souled by the disease?
Using found objects around Rochor, Sungei Road, and Waterloo, I made a pentagonal room
which is made out of doors. Through this work I would like to tell a tale, where a city falls into the final state of Korsakoff, unaware of its own demented state, frantically creating pseudo- identities, building different facades, different doors, which leads to the same empty space, no matter which door you enter from.
Urban Krosakoff Cure #01 shows how memory and identity are so easily lost through the frantic quest for a socially acceptable facade.
Amygdala
Teakwood and Plywood,
2015
600 x 350 x 180 mm
Amygdala is a part of our brain that controls the sense of emotion, moral judgment, and sense danger, but is considered a primitive part of our brain. This sculpture shows the struggle of man balancing what is moral according to his own judgment and his own desires.
Heartbreak Ceramics
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Adam
White Stoneware, Resin, Found Mirror
2016
80 x 80 x 100 mm
Adam got his heart broken by a Classy Bitch Eve.
This slightly comedic sculpture is my effort to reconcile with a heartbreak experience. Heartbreak, It has happened to everyone since the beginning of humankind.
Angler
White Stoneware, Resin, Mirror
2016
250 x 250 x 100 mm
Inspired Angler fish’s sexual dimorphism, where the parasitic male, born without the ability to digest, have to search for a female fish to be his host in order not to die. When the male Angler Fish found a female mate, he willfully fuses to the female, becoming not more than a pair of gonads. In this artwork, the artist wants to express such helplessly parasitic relationship in love, where one, can’t live without the other, but at the same time, lost the ability to define themselves as an autonomous being, and their independence. Not that they have the choice to.