The Monument of Sacrificed Turtles

Central to Ari’s practice is his collection of images and objects he encounters during his travels, and the assemblage of these into new configurations that draw on their associative meanings. This is perhaps best exemplified in the work he created for his solo exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2017, the outcome of his artist residency engaging with the Museum’s collections. Titled A Cabinet of Curiosities, the expansive installation featured poetic juxtapositions of everyday objects collected by the artist from various Indonesian islands as well as items of personal significance, introducing audiences to new visual and cultural vocabularies. True to its title, A Cabinet of Curiosities evoked the piquant wonder of discovering new and distant worlds.

A similar spirit can be seen in a selection of small sculptural objects included in this presentation at Warin Lab, where pieces of driftwood and coral are arranged in small ceramic vessels like bonsai, and adorned with strands of plastic rope as well as fragments of beads and other small items found by the beach. These works poetically evoke the treasures of the sea and its maritime histories, and also exemplify a Balinese ethos where everyday objects are made beautiful and sacred, as witnessed in the daily ritual offerings found all over the island. The small sculptures are visible embodiments of the ocean’s storied depths, with civilisations, histories, worlds beyond our grasp, and a palimpsest of past and present held in co-existence.