The participating artists approach the theme through diverse materials and media. Some draw from personal experience or local geography, while others address global ecological and social crises. Collectively, their works capture a moment of reckoning between destruction and renewal, despair and imagination.

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Ruin and reflection

Several installations stand out not only for their scale but also for their ability to translate today’s unease into visual form.

Syakiep Sungkar, who was born in 1962 and was once an entrepreneur and art collector, presents Tribute to Junkfood, a six-by-eight-meter installation where a skeleton lies on a plush bed guarded by two fast-food mascots. Initially humorous, the scene soon turns unsettling: a darkly comic elegy for a society overfed yet spiritually starved.

If Syakiep’s work critiques indulgence, Awan Simatupang channels existential dread. His installation Entah Kapan (Who Knows When) takes the shape of a massive neon sign made from celluloid strips illuminated by LEDs. When lit, it evokes the blinding flash of an explosion, a haunting echo of Hiroshima and a warning of catastrophe always near.

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