Southeast Asian Art History

The mid-first millennium CE represents a crucial period in the emergence of early polities in Southeast Asia. However, disagreement remains between archaeologists and art historians as to the precise dating of this shift from prehistory to history. This article focuses on the Dvaravati period and re-evaluates evidence in Thai and Western language publications. A growing number of sites excavated over the past two decades in particular show occupation from c. the fourth to fifth century onwards while others provide a continual sequence stretching back well into the Iron Age. I argue that evidence from these sites makes a strong case for postulating a proto-Dvaravati period spanning c. the fourth to fifth centuries. In doing so this article proposes this period as the timeframe within which the nascent traits and characteristics of what becomes Dvaravati in the seventh to ninth centuries are present and gradually developing.

Ranging across the longue durée of Thailand’s history, Monastery, Monument, Museum is an eminently readable and original contribution to the study of the kingdom’s art and culture. Eschewing issues of dating, style, and iconography, historian Maurizio Peleggi addresses distinct types of artifacts and artworks as both the products and vehicles of cultural memory. From the temples of Chiangmai to the Emerald Buddha, from the National Museum of Bangkok to the prehistoric culture of Northeast Thailand, and from the civic monuments of the 1930s to the political artworks of the late twentieth century, even well-known artworks and monuments reveal new meanings when approached from this perspective.
Part I, “Sacred Geographies,” focuses on the premodern era, when religious credence informed the cultural alteration of landscape, and devotional sites and artifacts, including visual representation of the Buddhist cosmology, were created. Part II, “Antiquities and National History,” covers the 1830s through the 1970s, when antiquarianism, and eventually archaeology, emerged and developed in the kingdom, partly the result of a shift in the elites’ worldview and partly a response to colonial and neocolonial projects of knowledge. Part III, “Discordant Mnemoscapes,” deals with civic monuments and artworks that anchor memory of twentieth-century political events and provide stages for both their commemoration and counter-commemoration by evoking the country’s embattled political present.

Monastery, Monument, Museum shows us how cultural memory represents a kind of palimpsest, the result of multiple inscriptions, reworkings, and manipulations over time. The book will be a rewarding read for historians, art historians, anthropologists, and Buddhism scholars working on Thailand and Southeast Asia generally, as well as for academic and general readers with an interest in memory and material culture.

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This thesis examines certain map art and mapping projects by Tiffany Chung, Tintin Wulia and MAP Office within a framework called “traumatised topologies” and shows how these three artists counter-map by layering onto their map art specific psychic “subjectivities” related to two geographical constructs: (1) war-related trauma as experienced by survivors as depicted within war-torn topologies and battle zones of the Vietnam War; and (2) “states of alienation” as experienced by the Vietnamese refugee, the Filipino migrant worker and the Hong Kong resident whose political future is uncertain as depicted within the idea of Hong Kong as a “border” construct.  These various psychic subjectivities are shown to yield specific geographical-art understandings concerning: (1) the nature of trauma for the survivor, opening up an affective empathic pathway for the spectator who encounters map art depicting trauma; and (2) illustrate from three different perspectives the sense of being “unhomed” and its influence on claims of belonging, territorialisation and identity as they relate to Hong Kong as “border.”

A catalogue essay for the exhibition 'Video: an art, a history, 1965-2010' held at the Singapore Art Museum in 2011. The essay identifies three salient characteristics of electronic media that may be specific to their use and amplitude in Southeast Asian contemporary art.

Ancient Southeast Asia provides readers with a much needed synthesis of the latest discoveries and research in the archaeology of the region, presenting the evolution of complex societies in Southeast Asia from the protohistoric period, beginning around 500BC, to the arrival of British and Dutch colonists in 1600. Well-illustrated throughout, this comprehensive account explores the factors which established Southeast Asia as an area of unique cultural fusion. Miksic and Goh explore how the local population exploited the abundant resources available, developing maritime transport routes which resulted in economic and cultural wealth, including some of the most elaborate art styles and monumental complexes ever constructed.

The book’s broad geographical and temporal coverage, including a chapter on the natural environment, provides readers with the context needed to understand this staggeringly diverse region. It utilizes French, Dutch, Chinese, Malay-Indonesian and Burmese sources and synthesizes interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives and data from archaeology, history and art history. Offering key opportunities for comparative research with other centres of early socio-economic complexity, Ancient Southeast Asia establishes the area’s importance in world history.

Scholarship about satire, the mocking of authority, in Southeast Asia has focused lately on cartoons and, more recently, on videos and memes in social media, perhaps predictably enough, given the high accessibility of these visual forms due to ease or little need of translation, and the ubiquitous presence of social media. With respect to Malaysia and Indonesia, scholars have rightly focused on traditional and contemporary forms of wayang (shadow theatre) as a form of satire—particularly through Semar, the clown (variously named). In comparison, there is relatively little scholarship about satire in other forms of contemporary theatre, notably urban. In addition to the dominance of wayang in theatre scholarship about Malaysia and Indonesia, several dominant narratives may be said to exist, with attendant assumptions about audiences and censorship such that their relations might best be described as a ‘push me, pull you’ negotiation; a kind of ‘back and forth-ing’ or ‘tugging’ of negotiation and exchange that belies the eye, occupying different territory yet occurring within the same space. This paper has two parts; the first will present dominant narratives and then argue that existing ‘counter-narratives’ serve to challenge those narratives as norms. The second part, with reference to Joel S. Migdal’s ‘state in society’ approach and Fredric Bogel’s ‘standard triangle’ of satire, will present two case studies to examine relations between audiences, censorship and political satirical theatre. It should be stated at the outset that this is a preliminary examination and more research is identified throughout the paper that could serve to further substantiate the argument made.

This article presents information about Trang in southern Thailand from two trips there by the American naturalist William Louis Abbott (1860-1936), focusing on twelve locally used musical instruments Abbott collected in 1896 on his first visit. A second visit (late December 1898 to March 1899) provided another opportunity for him to record observations. The musical instruments he collected are now in the Ethnology collection (Department of Anthropology) of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The information presented here adds to the relatively few 19th-century primary sources for the ethnography and music of southern Thailand. This article also notes similarities between some of these village instruments and the elaborately decorated but structurally similar ones produced under royal patronage for the Thai court, represented within the same Smithsonian collection by other musical instruments received as royal gifts from Thai monarchs. [Journal of the Siam Society 107(2):91-116 (+ Contributor information, p. 172).]

Indonesian Art Goes International, or so went the headline of a gathering of art enthusiasts held in Jakarta, Indonesia in August 2008. Organised by Deddy Kusuma, a Chinese-Indonesian property magnate and a major collector of Indonesian and Asian art, and the Asosiasi Pencinta Seni Indonesia (Art Lovers Association of Indonesia), the gathering brought together a select group of Indonesian art collectors, curators and artists to meet Lorenzo Rudolf who was travelling through Asia in order to promote ShContemporary, the art fair in Shanghai of which he was then the director. Gatherings of this variety are vital in the operation of the transnational art market for they cement relationships tied to market transactions, further the production of increasingly trans-border exhibitions, projects and discourses and contribute to, and are also evidence of, the vibrancy of the contemporary art market. Those present at the gathering had a keen sense of the immediacy and simultaneity of being in the contemporary artworld, and in turn recognised their presence in a world where distance and difference never seemed more inconsequential.

Apart from nation-acclaiming images produced by regime-friendly artists, and war drawings produced by soldier-artists on the front, few Vietnamese artists have dared the American War’s critical assessment from inside the country.
This essay analyses a recent participative installation by Bui Cong Khanh, as well as earlier pieces by Vu Dan Tan and Dinh Q Le, to explore how visual art can tackle the complex private-public question of war, history and memory in Vietnam and beyond.

An earlier version of this brief essay on the famous nineteenth-century painter, Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman's (c.1811-1880), family, was published by Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG) in Jakarta in the recent paperback edition of Werner Kraus Raden Saleh: Kehidupan dan Karyanya (October 2018), pp.xvii-xxvii under the title "Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman dan Perang Jawa (1825-1830): Sisi Lain Keluarga yang Membangkang" ["Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman and the Java War (1825-1830): Another Side of a Dissident Family"]. I wrote the essay in Indonesian and English, and a separate posting has been made for the English edition. The foreword was originally (4 May 2019) updated with new information from the family of Kiai Adipati Suroadimenggolo V (ca.1765/68-1826) in Bogor (Annie Soedasmo, seventh generation descendant of Raden Tumenggung Notodiningrat/Pringgoloyo [1800-1872]) and in Ulujami, Jakarta (Pak Muh. Mansur Werdisastro), the latter a sixth generation descendant of the Kiai (Suroadimernggolo---Notodiningrat and son of Saleh Werdisastro (1908-66) [daidancho PETA Bantul, 1943-45; Wakil Walikota Yogya, 1950-52; Walikota Solo 1952-58; Residen Kedu, 1960-65)---Mansur Werdisastro)  received in 2018-19. But the Hague-based Raden Saleh expert, Dr Marie-Odette Scalliet, has kindly provided new information from Dutch colonial archive and published (Netherlands-Indies press) sources which has enabled me to check and correct many of these family traditions with evidence-based sources. This new revision was posted on 11 August 2021 and should be read in conjunction with the English-language version of the same text which is posted on this website and which contains more information. Readers are also directed at my extended article which appeared in the Paris-based journal Archipel, "Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman (circa 1811-1880) and the Java War (1825-30): A Dissident Family History", Archipel 102, pp.87-126, which can be accessed at https://journals.openedition.org/archipel/2927, which supersedes these other two academia.edu posted writings on Raden Saleh.

Southeast Asian artists, from the 1970s onwards, developed conceptual strategies that, combined with siting and physical involvement, engaged viewers in critical conversations about society and politics. Installations and performances, designed for collective zones,  were often structured in a way reminiscent of games. This paper argues the linkage between methodologies of play,  critical interrogations, and conceptual strategies as characterising trait of Southeast Asian contemporary art.

Women's Cradle Song: A crowd of tiny chicks keep cheeping from back of the room of a longhouse, calling for a handful of feed, the broken tips of the pounded padi. Why our tears, my friend, coursing wildly down our cheeks and again brimming, rolling, dropping? As we closely look at each separate strand, following the design of the mat; as we begin weaving the form of the balai belantan blanket; as we make ready and roll the fibres, so dark red in color, in order to weave from memory the ampang sebayan blanket. (Rubenstein 1985:88) In this paper I want to conduct an exploration into the meaning, centrality, and anatomy of artmaking in an indigenous tribal culture on the third largest island in the world. Due to the processes of colonialism, modernization and urbanization, this traditional culture has now largely disappeared; it developed and matured in the shelter of a rainforest world which is near-extinct. This is not a strictly historical paper, nor is it an attempt at ethnography: this text exists in a tenuous space between ethno-aesthetics and art history. I hope to conjure up a multifaceted picture

[By Lisa McQuail; Preface/Acknowledgments by P.M. Taylor. This full book is uploaded here while the Smithsonian website, where it was published online, is being revised.] This study documents for the first time a group of artifacts whose meaning and significance have, until now, been inadequately understood by scholars, and sometimes even misunderstood by the recipients of the gifts themselves---the presidents and people of the United States. Yet for both Thais and Americans these gifts truly are historic, artistic, and scientific treasures, through which the Kings of Thailand represented their nation, and its alliances with America through time. Nearly all sets of gifts, from the courtly nielloware, silks, musical instruments and weapons to the everyday basketry, tools, agricultural samples and fish traps, were accompanied by a Royal Letter listing the contents of the gift (in Thai and English), and explaining its significance. This catalog introduces those Royal Letters and their lists, for the first time, into the interpretation of the gifts. This book will interest art-, social-, and diplomatic historians; anthropologists, linguists, and ethnomusicologists; students of Thai theater and culture; and all those who will appreciate the aesthetic quality of the gift objects or the very good stories those objects were meant to tell.

[Book chapter:] Pp. 22-23 (+ integrated photo credits, p. 144) in: "Visual Art" ed. by Dr. Hilda Soemantri [vol. 7 in series:] "Indonesian Heritage" (Sian Jay, General Editor).  Singapore & Jakarta:  Editions Didier Millet. 1998.
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    In traditional societies of Indonesia, there is little or no art for art's sake. Instead, we can say that beauty (aesthetics) follows function, because the aesthetic quality of an object helps it carry out its function. Traditional artists from throughout Indonesia have imbued functional objects - those made for purposes other than being aesthetically pleasing - with aesthetic value. Yet it is difficult to identify any traditional Indonesian object that was made solely as 'art ', that is: to elicit an aesthetic response.
    Indonesia 's traditional artworks often embody remarkable aesthetic uses and modifications of materials, and today many are recognised as great works of art with high art-market values. Yet, deciding whether particular objects are 'works of art' (let alone separating 'art' from 'craft') is only problematic for art markets or museums. These questions do not correspond to the thinking that originally created the objects, and these distinctions have never been important to the artists.
    Throughout Indonesia, we find strong emphasis on the divinely regulated or moral aspects of aesthetics and the notion that violation of these canons will negate the social function of the object. Rather than creating a functional object then adding decorations, the maker includes the decorations as fundamental elements of an object - the absence of which would impair its ability to function.

Video art from the Philippines has gained currency on the global stage in recent years. While its inclusion in prestigious international exhibitions and recognition from various award-giving bodies might suggest that video art is now part of mainstream contemporary art practices in the Philippines, this thesis asserts that it still remains very much on the periphery. These global turns have served to highlight the current dearth of art historical scholarship on video art from the Philippines. This study therefore seeks to shed light on the following key questions:  1) How did video art emerge in the Philippines? 2) How is it being supported locally? 3) How can it continue to develop in the future? 

Through primary interviews with key contemporary artists and curators who have consistently worked with the medium of video, this thesis traces video art’s emergence from the alternative visual cultures of experimental film and conceptual art from the late 1990s till the present.  It also analyzes the ecosystem supporting video art to identify the factors that have fueled Philippine video art’s successes or served to limit its wider acceptance amongst local audiences.

Over the past 20 years, video has been used in various ways to reflect not just social issues but also to explore notions of time and space, memory and identity, performativity and process. Video art’s development over this period was sustained by the established educative and commercial infrastructure for film and visual arts, as well as financial and organizational support provided by public and private institutions. On the other hand, video art’s wider appreciation by audiences was challenged by the local market’s continued preference for painting and concerns on the medium’s reproducibility, the economic and logistical difficulties of organizing dedicated video art exhibitions, and the absence of an institution to drive archiving and research initiatives.

In light of these structural challenges, what can the future be for video art in the Philippines?  Can these “interruptions” even be overcome?  Recent initiatives by artists and independent curators suggest that the path towards this future must first be grounded in the past. Such artist-run initiatives can become the common ground by which the various players in the ecosystem might piece together the origins of video art, from anecdotes of lost files and past exhibitions, and begin to build the discourse that will sustain its future.

The story of a society and its members, based in Singapore and abroad, in commemoration of its 50th anniversary in 2019. This was the first oriental ceramic society to focus on the ceramics of Southeast Asia (and its neighbours). During its 50 years (to date), it has sponsored several significant exhibitions with accompanying catalogues while arranging events and funding research to further our knowledge of this field. The text follows the society's history from its founding in 1969 by William Willetts and its first president Helen Ling, while chronicling some of the major discoveries and advances made in the field.  ISBN 978-981-14-2675-9

Zhuang, Wubin. “Shenti Lixing: The Documenting Practice of Loke Hong Seng.” In A Social Portrait of Singapore, The Critical Years. Photography by Loke Hong Seng, edited by Audrey Yeo, 58-59. Singapore: Yeo Workshop, 2015.

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In this essay, I consider the documenting practice of senior Singaporean street photographer Loke Hong Seng as an embedded/embodied practice, encapsulated by the idiom of “Shenti Lixing” (身体力行).

"Beyond the Java Sea" explores the traditional art of eight regions in the so-called outer islands: Nias, the Batak and the Lampung regions of Sumatra, Sulawesi (Celebes), Kalimantan, the Lesser Sundas (Nusa Tenggara), the South-east Moluccas, and Irian Jaya (West Irian). Relatively unknown in the West, the outer islands include all of Indonesia's islands except Java (including nearby Madura) and Bali, the better-known inner islands that border the Java sea.

Through the chapters of this book, the reader will travel from Nias in the far west to Irian Jaya in the east, encountering artworks that are exemplars of indigenous Indonesian aesthetics as well as masterpieces as defined by a Western collector's aesthetic. These works and the accompanying discussions will also introduce the peoples who produce them. Throughout this region, art links village life with the supernatural; it honors ancestors, cements alliances, affirms political power, social rank and kin relationships, and, of course, it simultaneously surrounds with beauty the peoples who create it. Yet each regional style presents topics and problems peculiar to it. The format of this presentation will allow readers to understand the similarity as well as the diversity, finding in the art of each region recurring themes and styles that reflect the closely related histories of the peoples and the similar purposes for which all Indonesians create art.
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Note:  Book is out of print; available from used-book dealers, e.g.:

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In the early 1830s and 1840s, a British colonial official by the name of Colonel James Low uncovered evidence for an early culture with Indic traits in a river system known as the Bujang Valley. On the west coast of the Thai-Malay peninsula, the Bujang Valley is today located in the Malaysian state of Kedah. However, it wasn't until just before World War II that excavations took place, conducted by H. G. Quaritch Wales and his wife Dorothy. Their discoveries and subsequent publications led to the first real attempts to explain the origins and extent of this civilisation and its place within the larger South and Southeast Asian world. In the intervening years between Quaritch Wales's excavations and the present day, considerably more research has taken place within the Bujang Valley, though this has not been without controversy. Recently claims and counter-claims regarding the antiquity of Hinduism and Buddhism at the site have arisen in some quarters within Malaysia. It therefore seems pertinent that this material be re-evaluated in light of new scholarship and discoveries as well as the prevailing paradigms of interactions between South and Southeast Asia. This paper presents an updated reading of this material and argues that the Bujang Valley should be seen as a cosmopolitan trading port with substantive evidence for the presence of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Chapter 9 from the book is provided here to researchers and scholars for easy reference. This chapter covers the metal analysis of the gold coins of the Kushanas (from the British Museum Collection), the gold & silver coins of the Gupta Kings, as well as the silver coins of the Kshatrapa kings (prior to, and upto their conquest by Kumaragupta I). 

The data provided herein references both the specific gravity analysis done by various scholars in the past, as well as new data based on an extensive XRF spectrographic analysis study for the gold and silver coins of the Gupta kings as well as the silver coins of the Western Kshatrapa kings.

The results shown from the analysis here, totally negate the theories put forth by past scholars and historians that starting with Skandagupta a debasement of the Gupta gold coins occured, caused invariably by invasions by three foreign powers - i.e.,  the Sassanians, the Kushana Śakas and the Hūṇas (Jayaswal 1934:34), a false premise, derived from wrong assumptions, leading to wrong conclusions which are then treated as 'facts' and continue to get repeated and quoted time and again by later scholars.

Written for a catalogue of an exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum with loans from the Myanmar National Museums, this essay outlines the broad characteristics of the art of the Shan State in Myanmar, and briefly reviews the state of the field.

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. The Angkorian city: From Hariharalaya to Yashodharapura Miriam Stark, Alison Carter, Piphal Heng, Rachna Chhay, Damian Evans

This is the bi-lingual catalogue of the historic exhibition at the Indonesian National Gallery (GalNas) in Jakarta which runs from 6 February to 8 March 2015. Focussing on Prince Diponegoro (1785-1855) in the memory of the nation, it brings together over 40 works from Raden Saleh's newly restored 1857 masterpiece to a dozen and more paintings by living Indonesian artists especially commissioned  for this exhibit. One of the most striking is Srihadi Soedarsono's 'Pangeran Diponegoro dan Raden Saleh, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika-Tan Hana Dharma Mangrwa', which greets every visitor as they step into the exhibit. It depicts the deep spiritual bond linking the famous artist and the Java War leader. There is also a bi-lingual (Indonesian and English) audioguide for this exhibit which can be downloaded from the www.akudiponegoro.com website. For all those living in SE Asia a visit to this exhibit in the next two weeks before its 8 March closure is a must.

This edited volume advocates a trans-regional, and maritime-focused, approach to studying the genesis, development and circulation of Esoteric (or Tantric) Buddhism across Maritime Asia from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries AD. The book lays emphasis on the mobile networks of human agents ('Masters'), textual sources ('Texts') and images ('Icons') through which Esoteric Buddhist traditions spread.

Capitalising on recent research and making use of both disciplinary and area-focused perspectives, this book highlights the role played by Esoteric Buddhist maritime networks in shaping intra-Asian connectivity. In doing so, it reveals the limits of a historiography that is premised on land-based transmission of Buddhism from a South Asian 'homeland', and advances an alternative historical narrative that overturns the popular perception regarding Southeast Asia as a 'periphery' that passively received overseas influences. Thus, a strong point is made for the appreciation of the region as both a crossroads and rightful terminus of Buddhist cults, and for the re-evaluation of the creative and transformative force of Southeast Asian agents in the transmission of Esoteric Buddhism across mediaeval Asia.

This is one of the first texts on developments of contemporary Performance Art in Indonesia, as well as an in-depth critical reading of the 9th Jakarta Biennial. The original abstract to my dissertation (2011) is incredibly inadequate and inaccurate (see below). The main and overarching  issues in this dissertation contend with critical analyses and arguments of  'contemporary' art - how seni kontemporer was discussed and defined in Indonesian art discourses and practices 1973-1990s. The Pivotal object that serves as a catalyst is the curatorial premise, exhibition event, international network, and art works associated with 9th Jakarta Biennial.

Key terms and themes:
Performance and installation art in Indonesia 1970's-1990s
Exhibition Histories
Jakarta Biennial IX (9th Jakarta Biennial, 1993)
Critique of Jakarta Biennial IX
Jim Supangkat
Sanento Yuliman
New Order cultural policy
Issues of a postmodernism in an Indonesian discourse
Seni Eksperimental / Seni Alternatif
Artists and artist groups under discussion include:
Sumber Waras, Marintan Sirait, Andar Manik, Arahmaiani, Semsar Siahaan, Krisna Murti, FX Harsono, Moelyono, Heri Dono, Pameran Eksperimental (Binal), Jeprut, Tisna Sanjaya, Isa Perkasa, Nandang Gawe, Wawan Hussin, Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru Indonesia, Kelompok Lima.

Original abstract: I offer a history and genealogy of concepts of critical artistic practice, examining to what purpose strategies of a contemporary art have been put and from what conditions they emerged. I examine how these have been interpreted to possess criticality in Indonesia. Taking the controversial curatorial essay published for the 9th Jakarta Biennale of Art (1993) as a catalyst rather than as a point of reference, I rethink the possibility and value of a construct of an avant-garde and postmodern in seni rupa kontemporer.I propose a kind of avant-garde without modernism’s tradition of transgressive poetics. The mode of marginality I have in mind is a critical position possible only on this side of the political sea change and depoliticization of the cultural field in Indonesia after 1965. This entails tracing shifting notions of art’s and artistic autonomy, which were largely dependent upon the relation art had with politics and the spheres in which artistic practice was seen to reside. My argument for a kind of pascamodernisme (postmodernism) in contemporary art in Indonesia posits its position also as one of a critical marginality, whose experiences with modernity are specific and distinct from those of the Euro-North-American context. I argue that a pascamodernisme in contemporary art articulates critical artistic practice as a postcolonial critique of modernity-as-development, and the mutilating forces of modernization. A key aspect in this discussion is those practices that sought to assume alternative traditions, realities, and futures within modernity. In this regard, an important subtext is notions of collaborative work and the artist as members of artists’ collectives and collaborative type of work as a primary and critical artistic solution. I am interested in those artistic collaborative and collective projects that helped to establish installation and performance art into art-historical categories in Indonesia, and whose activities and projects have had a discernible impact on the development of seni rupa kontemporer and how it would be defined vis-à-vis the terms and concepts generated by them.