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A series of images by Indonesian artist Maryanto highlights the exploitative, extractivist relationship between the natural ecosystem, and development and mass tourism, in Indonesia, in particular on the islands of...
A series of images by Indonesian artist Maryanto highlights the exploitative, extractivist relationship between the natural ecosystem, and development and mass tourism, in Indonesia, in particular on the islands of Bali and Java. Anthropogenic was created using the artist’s signature scratching method: the canvas was painted, and the composition then scratched out using a knife. It features a mangrove swamp in Bali, part of a contested reclamation project in Benoa Bay. The smaller drawings address mass tourism in Indonesia, increasingly driven by a rapidly growing Indonesian middle-class. Tourist destinations have sprung up all over the country to serve this domestic demand, with natural sites transformed into theme park-like representations of themselves overnight. Selfie Spot Ijen, for instance, features the titular phenomenon at Ijen volcano in East Java, reducing the natural landscape to a two-dimensional cacricature of itself for social media purposes. This politics of representation is also present in Sunrise Antusias / Sunrise Enthusiastic, which features crowds of tourists catching the sunrise on Mt. Bromo, also in East Java. Here, the crowds have become the spectacle in Maryanto’s work, rather than the ostensible draw, the sunrise itself. Anak Seribu Batu depicts another popular selfie spot: Imogiri village boasts a tourist site, Thousand Stones, full of Hobbit houses and windmills.
Meru / Fractured Paradise, 15 September - 05 October 2023, Tabula Rasa Gallery, London, United Kingdom From the Land of Gold Below the Winds in the South Seas, ART SG, Singapore (12 - 15 January 2023)