Imaginary Homeland

< Imaginary Homeland: 我是不是該安靜的走開 >

Use your mobile device to see a new side of this print: go to your Accessibility settings, select 'Invert Colours', and view the artwork via your phone's camera!

This print is a part of The Artling's Prints Project (A.P.P.).

Edition of 100 + 2 AP

Framed Print: US$ 365. Get in touch at contact@theartling.com if you'd like us to organize framing for you!


Artist Statement:
“Drawing, with its graphology, elaborates what our consciousness grasps in an instant.”
- Henri Cartier-Bresson

The work is part of a process that looks at photographic imagery and their impact in our remembering and re-forming of personal narratives. Having left his hometown of Solo City, Indonesia due to ethnic tensions at the age of 9, the artist’s historicisation of his former country was mostly through images and the imagined. The process started with the artist drawing negative images of reportage photographs of Indonesian politics in the mid-sixties, a period of transition from Soekarno’s National Independence to Soeharto’s New Order. Lyrics from the 80’s Mandopop–songs filled with heartbreak melodramas, that the artist listened to in his youth–accompany these drawings.

The negative image is of a young Soeharto, drawn to a 8x10 (Ultra) Large Format film size. The viewer is invited to use her mobile device, with invert settings turned on, to see the positive image. Shifting between the modality of drawing and photography, the artist reflects viscerally upon the imagery of his personal history, seeking agency."