POST RIMBUN

This project differs from my usual practice; it is dedicated to the island where I have lived for 15 years, Bali.

I was invited to participate in an exhibition at the museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, examining Bali and its influence on Chinese artists throughout the 20th century. Rather than approaching the subject through nostalgia, I chose to respond to what I see today.

Bali has been idealized into a sacred, lush microcosm suspended outside of time. That dream is still being sold, but the landscape has been dismantled to accommodate the demand. In the south, rice fields and forests have been replaced by dense construction, and the layered greens of the land have shifted toward tones of grey, brick, and rust.

I wanted to reflect on how contemporary economic systems can rapidly reshape shared environments. This work takes roots in traditional Balinese landscape painting, but using photographs of forest environments, taken during my latest treks in the northern area, as the main subject to be handprinted on textile.

The pigments used were processed entirely from construction debris: crushed brick, ground concrete, powdered rust, and fragments of broken pavement. Materials foraged directly from the streets of the overdeveloped south, where waste accumulates everywhere.

The work is structured around a dichotomy. The image presents Bali as lush and spiritual, while the pigment originates from its transformation. The same logic that sells Bali as paradise produces the rubble that made these prints possible.

Exoticism extracts the aesthetic while externalizing the ethical and environmental cost. This installation makes that mechanism visible.