Weaving can be seen as an act of preserving narratives while simultaneously creating a work of art. From the perspective of capitalism and industrialization, weaving holds a contrasting power, a slow, intentional rhythm against the demands of a fast-paced life. 

I remember my conversation with Betty Susiarjo. She mentioned that her works are created during moments when she feels numb. She had to move to Jerusalem for family matters, juggling multiple roles: as a mother, a lecturer teaching both Israeli and Palestinian students about Indonesian culture, and a person committed to humanity amidst political tension. At one point, she had to evacuate with her children and relocate to her sister’s city in France. The situation was not easy to navigate for her as being a mom, Indonesian, person who is standing for humanity, but as an artist, she said that she has to keep doing things while feeling numb. 

She wants to keep her art practice as ways of keeping her sane and present as a mother. In her safe place, she started to make dots from the transparent post-it that she brought. She saw that the color mixed to each other created a pattern and healed her numbness. She moved from making a work that requires proper equipment such as camera and canvas to something humble and possible. She is trying to tell that the practice of art that she is doing is grounding on where she is, but also a statement that the meaning of her life is fluid. Humanity is not something that can be negotiated, but on a personal level, she has to keep navigating herself for being present. And her works are a manifestation of her grounding effort and getting back to believing in her senses and feelings to keep alive. 

Restu Ratnaningtyas who based in Yogyakarta made a work of fabrics and drawing on paper, I know her personally as an artist who put rigid figures on her drawings. She played on important narratives that she transmitted from her experience and reflection of being a woman and mother. Oftenly, she is using a familiar symbol that she encounters daily. But in this exhibition, she brings works that have no dominant and rigid figures, fragmented and sublimed into another form. The absence of the figure at the center of her works are highlighting that there is not always a single narratives to transmit the experiences. Experiences are transmitted into multiple centers, fragmented. The works are a fragment of several meanings that re-articulate in a series of works.

The other works are coming from Chiara Hardy. She moved back to Ubud after her study in the United States. Her works are always about situated material, medium, and installations. She always depends on where she is, where the works will exhibit to make an artwork. One of the important ways of seeing her works is going deeper on her material and ways she is mending it. The materiality of her works could be seen as a language and fragment to tell on what is around. She gathered material from the street. She did regular visits to the hardware and building store. She manifested her experience of moving and sensing a place through the exploration of the material. The meaning is coming and crafted along the process of she is mending all the materials. 

The effort of searching for meaning comes from Ida Bagus Punia. I encountered his works through a recommendation from Nonfrasa. They used the word “nyebrang” or crossing path to express that Punia’s work uses unfamiliar figures, symbols, and ways of telling stories. I made a call with Punia to get to know each other. He mentioned that he passed an important journey of getting back to the painting after a few moments of hiatus. He said that he recalled her personality as part of the community but has to deal with the fact that he is using art and painting as part of his way to respond, document his thoughts and reflection about the society that he lives in. If there is an expression about the work of art as the best way to express the anxieties, feelings, and anger, Punia is holding much into that expression. All the figures seem familiar, but it meets with other elements that are not really familiar to get together. In this case, meaning is constructed and mixed with the imagination and interpretation of familiarity and unfamiliarity. 

Searching for an expression, Nani Wijaya is speaking about the woman’s body. When I had a conversation with her, she was critical of how women are constructed by many of the social pressures and expectations. With that much of burden, oftenly women turned into a position where woman lose control, agency, and have no choice. She constructed a St. Cecilia statue to question the narrative of female sanctity and suffering often imposed by religious and cultural ideals. St. Cecilia, traditionally revered as the patron saint of music and martyrdom, is frequently depicted as a passive figure, eyes turned heavenward, hands poised over an instrument, her body rendered sacred through sacrifice. But in Nani Wijaya’s interpretation, the saint’s body is no longer merely an icon of purity or piety, it becomes a contested site of resistance and reclamation.

Her appropriation of St. Cecilia becomes both an act of homage and subversion. It draws from the saint’s symbolic power while dislocating her from the frameworks of obedience and sacrifice. Instead, the statue becomes an invocation of agency: a woman who chooses not to be silenced, who sings for the living, and for those who have been told that their voices are too loud, too defiant, too much.

In Lintang Diani’s work, she uses an abstract painting to express her undefined and complex emotions. Once, when we met in her room and studio, I learned about how she expresses the undefined feeling through her song playlist and her routines. Her work can not be seen as something calculated and estimated, but as something that can feel something that reveals itself slowly, often in fragments, like memories surfacing through music or scent. Her canvas becomes a kind of diary without language—layers of color, texture, and gesture forming a terrain of emotional residue. In our conversation, she spoke about how abstraction allows her to avoid the pressure of clarity, of having to explain or justify what is already heavy inside her body. Instead, her brushstrokes move intuitively, like breath or a heartbeat, mapping the inner rhythms of grief, longing, joy, and quietness.