Kuku Bima (Bima’s nail), 2020
Sesama, Art residency
Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Curated by: Adam Gruba

Mengatasi masalah khusus, menambah semangat, gairah serta tenaga.

Being placed in a new environment evokes a range of emotions, fear, awe, joy, and anxiety. The urge to interpret everything through a European lens meets the impossibility of finding clear answers.The only way forward is adaptation, reshaping imagination, beliefs, and perceptions. Through experiments with local materials and creative acts, I immersed myself in the environment and interpret-ed it personally.

One of the things that struck me most was the ambiguity surrounding local men’s long nails. Their meaning varied across different beliefsthey weresaid to be weapons, status symbols, tools, remnants of forgotten traditions, or magical talismans.The search for a single truth highlighted the West-ern tendency to impose order on diverse customs.
Kuku Bima came to symbolize a reconfiguration of perception, where hidden rituals, beliefs, and cultural gestures shape everyday actions.