Kuku Bima (Bima’s nail)
Sesama Residency
Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2020
Site-specific installation, workshop & performance
Mengatasi masalah khusus, menambah semangat, gairah serta tenaga.
Being placed in a new and unfamiliar environment evokes a range of emotions—fear, surprise, awe, joy, disgust, and anxiety. A compulsive need to translate everything through a post-colonial gaze meets the impossibility of finding clear answers. The only way forward is adaptation, reshaping imagination, beliefs, and convictions. Through explorations with local materials and creative acts, I tried to immerse myself in the environment and interpret it personally.
I was struck by surrounding ambiguities, and above all, by the long nails of local men. No one could clearly explain their symbolism—they were said to be weapons, status symbols, tools, remnants of forgotten traditions, or magical talismans. The neurotic search for a single truth, a form of homogenizing customs, highlighted the Western tendency to colonize aesthetics. Kuku’s Bimas came to symbolize a reconfiguration of perception, where hidden rituals, beliefs, and cultural gestures shape every action and decision.