Amid Citra Sasmita’s first UK exhibition, how much has tourism influenced the island’s contemporary art scene?
The Barbican presents Citra Sasmita‘s exhibition Into Eternal Land, her first solo exhibition in the UK. Exhibited at The Curve, the Indonesian artist’s mixed media paintings and installations entail stories of migration in Indonesia, referencing symbolism and Balinese folktales.
Born and raised in Bali, the 34-year-old artist first began her practice as a short story illustrator for the Bali Post. Sasmita works with installations, implementing stitch techniques and art styles from all parts of the archipelago. Her artwork has since been presented around Asia, the Middle East, and America before her first appearance in the UK.
The exhibition space at the Barbican is dimly lit, and like a screenplay, Into Eternal Land is split to three different acts, a prologue epilogue. With natural fibres and materials, each artwork tells the story of transformations to the women in her paintings, ending in a serene rebirth.
The winding exhibition room reveals Prologue, where embroidered cow hide sparkles on antique wooden pillars that hang from the ceiling. Followed by Act One, displaying metre-long Kamasan-style paintings with imagery of female bodies that transform and contort.
There is a spiritual touch as these subjects merge into elements from the natural world as bird spirits and trees, which give a nod to Balinese people’s deep-rooted connection to nature.
Afterwards begins Act Two and Act Three, with found wooden masks revealing braided synthetic hair and embroidery, Sasmita’s signature figures and slashes of red painted on python skin. In the next act stands two large embroidered versions of her Kamasan paintings, the threads adding textured lines while her signature vibrant hues look softened.
The final act, an immersive Epilogue, invites you to sit on cushions that surround the installation, with cursive text sprawled in a mandala made of turmeric.
Hanging above it is the final act, another long Kamasan painting with red and black patterns reminiscent of the textiles that hang around the island, with festive flashes of gold often adorning shrines or displayed around Bali during special occasions.
Despite its feminist backdrop and overall empowering message, the women in Sasmita’s artwork are depicted in violence, with angry red splashes evident in each piece and consistent throughout the exhibition.
It was something I questioned upon viewing the exhibition at its opening: made by an artist who mainly paints women in a post-patriarchal society, there sure is a lot of violence and dismembered female bodies to illustrate said empowerment.
The Kamasan painting technique is named after the village located in the Klungkung regency and was traditionally used to paint male deities and heroics.
Sasmita takes inspiration from this ancient painting technique and draws women in the same dignified light. It acts as a test to societal norms as she questions where women stand in hierarchies that have followed her and many other Balinese women.
The embroidered paintings in Act Three that incorporate plants and trees act as a nod towards women herbalists throughout history, in collaboration with women artisans from western Bali.
What we also see is an imagined world where colonisation never reached Indonesia, erasing the decades of transformations that have terrorised the archipelago and consequently impacted religion and people’s upbringing.
Sasmita’s allusion to spirituality and Hinduism brings a unique perspective on this topic, expressed through her signature figures pouring blood and water, a fraction of what was historically recorded when the Dutch reached Indonesia.
Upon closer look, each artwork’s techniques and materials used (which you could feel, with permission from a Barbican staff member providing samples) have a purpose.
There are immersive elements in the exhibition, with music that accompanies the Epilogue installation composed by Agha Praditya Yogaswara. Distant chants reminiscent of temple prayers echo over an ambient soundtrack, and as you continue into the room there is also a distinct smell emanating from the antique wooden pillars to the synthetic braided hairs that hang from floor to ceiling.
“As a Balinese person, I believe in the ability to be embodied in space and time,” Sasmita says, on her first show in the UK. “The Curve has allowed me to present a ritual for the space itself, along with the cosmology and cultural roots that I bring from Bali.”
While Sasmita is one of the many Southeast artists who have exhibited in the UK, it’s rare to see contemporary art from Indonesia reach the West, let alone Balinese artists. In an interview for Art Basel, Sasmita notes the art world’s main market in Java rather than the other islands on the archipelago, which marginalises them.
“I think it’s a very important statement to say that as island artists, our practices should always be rooted in authentic knowledge and aesthetics,” she says. “The art world wants us to think with their geopolitical mindset about being global.”
Sasmita adds that in the process, “they are erasing fragments of important knowledge that are inherited by people living on small islands.
“We have to ask what the importance of Bali is in the context of a global contemporary, in the context of a geopolitical framework.”
Sasmita has since incorporated learnings from all parts of her home island, bringing audiences all over the world to view Bali and showcasing a unique perspective on mythology as well as contemporary issues, painting Bali outside of the tourist lens portrayed in mainstream media.
Similarly, Luh’de Gita is an artist who incorporates a lot of her upbringing in Bali into her work, whether it be the natural environment, the cartoons she grew up watching, or the tourists that run rampant in her hometown.
Currently finishing her master’s degree at the Royal College of Art, her peers hailing from all parts of the world have been a new influence on her practice.
On the topic of gentrification, she says: “I worry if I glorify Bali with my art because I use a lot of dreamlike imagery and my previous painting series, titled ‘Paradiso’ had a similar theme.” She describes painted landscapes of coconut trees and serene beaches with waves lapping at the shore.
“Sometimes that’s usually interesting to outsiders, but they don’t realise the underlying problems I’m communicating in these paintings.”
In the Paradiso series, Luh’de takes from landscapes of the island’s tourist hotspots and skilfully twists them. Like a game of The Sims, she paints the green logo above the figures in her work to stimulate a merge between reality and digital spaces. Becoming a sort of God who controls reality, Luh’de includes and excludes aspects of Bali’s ‘paradise’ imagery to fit her desires.
Since speaking to her University tutors, she had started debating on whether to incorporate said imagery into her work, as it’s commonly found in the work of her Balinese contemporary artist friends.
Luh’de tells me a story taking place at her friend’s exhibition back home, “I asked my fellow Balinese artist friends, ‘do you feel like you are selling your identity as Balinese people? You know, taking cultural symbols or imagery and putting them into your work’, and their responses were surprisingly not what I hoped to hear.”
Whether it’s a misinterpretation of the question, her friends showed pride in taking from the culture, saying she should also present romantic imagery of the island in her own work.
“I wonder if I should ask myself the same question or not because lots of people relate to their culture nowadays,” Luh’de says. “Bringing up topics like colonialism and neo-colonialism and whatnot. Whether to discuss them in my work or not has been my dilemma.”
Since being in London, Luh’de delves into a lot of discussions about Indonesia with her peers, especially about Bali and its community, evidently impacted by the tourists all year round visiting the island.
“I’ve been feeling like I’m still curious about my culture, like our ceremonies, dances, things like that,” she says, referencing rituals and practices she remembers like the back of her hand. “after moving to London, I really feel like I’m in the shoes of a tourist, looking at Bali from the outside.”
She also realises how little attention the Balinese people receive from local governments. Luh’de says, “There are new hotels and cafes always opening, which authorities really push to happen. But when it comes to [funding] public transportation, it’s been neglected. And it’s usually built for us! The local community who use it the most,” she adds.
When we speak about the newest developments built without the correct permits and on protected land, Luh’de articulates her points passionately, emphasising her concerns and huffing about the contradictions she finds herself in.
While she raises topics like mental health and pop culture and paints dreamlike imagery in her work, she thinks her next paintings will turn towards concerns about her home.
Luh’de says: “I used to be afraid of expressing these views in my paintings, but now I’d like to include it in my new paintings.”
Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land will be exhibited at The Curve from January 30th to April 21st, 2025.
Feature image by Anggi Pande – Interview translated by Anggi Pande