Indonesian artist Timoteus Anggawan Kusno is holding a video exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei. He’s showing two video works exploring Indonesia’s colonial past. FTV reporter Stephany Yang spoke to the exhibit’s curator to learn more.

Using bamboo props in the shape of horses, the dancers chant and communicate with ancestral spirits.

The performance takes place in a former villa of the Dutch elites who controlled Indonesia’s sugar industry. This is one of the video works created by Indonesian artist Timoteus Anggawan Kusno. Through this work, he tells the story of Indonesia’s past and the effects of the sugar industry on local society and culture.

Violet Lin
Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei
He collaborated with local Indonesian dancers. For the artist, communicating with the ancestral spirits is a bit like having a dialogue with the local history of Indonesia. Through the video, he hopes to use dialogue with spirits to explore local Indonesian history. The video also draws inspiration from Indonesia’s own elements. Indonesia was ruled by the West in the 19th century, including by the Dutch. The footage delves into the sugar industry, which was developed during the Dutch colonial period, showing the villas where high-ranking officials lived and sugarcane fields.

Another video work was shot on a railway built during the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia. The artist included archival footages of the Dutch colonization, political propaganda, and past totalitarian regimes. The exhibition aims to provide a deeper understanding of the period of political transition in Indonesia and the country’s colonial culture.

Violet Lin
Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei
Using railway imagery, the artist simulates the colonizers’ perspective on Indonesia. Although these colonial and authoritarian cultures are no longer part of Indonesia today, there are still traces of memories and indelible relics remaining in the fabric of daily life.

The exhibition will be on show until April 21 at MOCA in Taipei.

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