The processes of marginalization as well as the fight over power and economy start from the top state bureaucracy level over the megaproject procurement down to the local rulers fighting over the work order. This injustice makes low-class society even poorer and later brings up various survival strategies with the logic of predation. Raden Kukuh Hermadi tried to reconstruct the process of deforestation in Gunungkidul by its residents as a way of survival against the challenging economic situation by selling charcoals as raw materials. That is why the forests are deforested and the trees are cut. The installation entitled ‘Matinya Tanah Firdaus’ (2021) targets the issue of extraction attached to the issue of fight over economic resources by destroying nature. Meanwhile, Tohjaya Tono’s artwork entitled ‘Tamulahan’ uses submarine as a metaphor for concealed agreements between the corporations, the rulers, and the state, all occurring under the radar of mass media. This is often wrapped with a complex narrative, such as development, the Omnibus Law on Job Creation, or development of tourism objects.
Tourism in various countries in the Oceania region is often framed as a tropical destination to attract the attention of tourists from all over the world. This colonial framing may, in the long run, leave cultural and ecological impacts on the existence of local inhabitants. In line with it, Ersal Umammit, an artist from Ambon, speaks of the issue of tourism in Banda Island, discussing it through the dark history of Dutch colonialism by monopolizing nutmegs trade, as well as the neo-colonialism in the form of investors monopolizing the tourism economy nowadays. Through the artwork entitled ‘Apa Kabar Banda Neira Hari Ini’ (2021) Ersal Umammit spreads out a photo collage that not only reconstructs what occurred in the past, but also other genocides due to the ecological crisis threatening the inhabitants of Banda Island in the future. Still concerning tourism, Kurniadi Widodo displays a series of photographs entitled ‘Towards New Landscapes’ (2018–present) highlighting the wide spread of photograph-based social media so as to give birth to a new relationship between human and nature and the vague standardization of beauty. Various artificial tourism objects are built in many places, replicating various world tourism icons, as if the definition of beauty were attributed only to Eiffel, Stonehenge, Big Ben, and other famous monuments.
The issue of anthropocene tightly interwoven with the extractive capitalism practices receives a response from several artworks by displaying the poetic imagination of the future of earth upon entering the new geological epoch showcasing the effects of human domination on earth. Eunike Nugroho tries to reverse the relationship between humans and the carnivorous plant Nepenthes hamata in the artwork of botanical painting entitled ‘Pelahap’ (2021). It portrays an imagery of human and the plant swapping positions; the threatened turns threatening. This reversal of position is a criticism of the human ego perceiving themselves as the center of the world and feeling entitled to devour everything for his own welfare. This kind of human greed will finally harm the balance of ecosystem and change the traditional cosmology.
Meta Enjelita, created an artwork entitled ‘A Zone Of Not Yet-Not Yet Mapped’ (2021) illustrating the damage to lands and the presence of dystopian landscape due to intentional burning of peatlands in her place of origin, West Kalimantan. Through the cloth installation colored by means of corrosion, Meta shows how humans have damaged nature under the pretext of modernism, but on one side nature has the strength to heal itself. Meanwhile, through the artwork ‘New World Order’ (2013), Hayden Fowler presents a video imagining an artificial world without the presence of humans that have been acting as the controller of nature all this time.
Still talking about anthropocene, Riar Rizaldi’s artwork entitled ‘Becquerel’ (2021) indirectly invites the audience to be more critical of viewing the issue. Anthropocene, which has become a global discourse in line with the ecological crisis, however, misses the discussion of racial, class, and gender discrimination underneath it. What has occurred is that as if all of it were the results of human actions universally, while the existence of structural inequalities has made a group of humans to become more exploitative against other vulnerable and most disadvantaged groups. Meanwhile, a small group of humans, far above the pyramid of power, benefits from various exploitations. Through the figure Sajad Ali, Riar expresses his allegiance to the group of humans often being the victims of this complex situation.
As a response to the human domination of nature, movements based on the local wisdom that puts humans, non-humans, and nature as equal entities, construes the local knowledge as equally valid as the Western knowledge system, and also retakes the lost values of life due to the impacts of modernization and standardization, become a noticeable idea appearing in several artworks in this exhibition. Lakoat.Kujawas, a community actively archiving and disseminating contextual knowledge in Mollo highlands, displays the artwork ‘Pah Afatis, Sonaf Aneot’ (2021) as a representation of uem bubu, a traditional house related to the systems of religion, kinship, language, food preservation, and relationship between the people of Mollo, animals, and nature. The same holds true for Simão Cardoso Pereira, an artist from Timor-Leste, presenting the film entitled ‘Identitas’ (2021). He recorded the resoluteness of Balibo people, who live on the border of Indonesia, to maintain the traditional rituals and knowledge for survival, to prevent various diseases and fight colonial occupation. Meanwhile, Motoyuki Shitamichi through the video installation ‘Tsunami Boulder (津波石)’ (2015-ongoing) explores the local belief in Miyako and Yaeyama Islands, where the inhabitants believe that boulders from the seabed stranded on land following the occurrence of tsunami are magical and should be worshipped. On these boulders, according to Motoyuki Shitamichi, a unique landscape was created where the aspects of nature and culture became one.