Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei

There are still many aspects of Indonesian history that have not been openly discussed, especially during the turbulent period of power transition. This period was marked by systematic and massive violence, which was often based on the interplay of identity politics. These unfinished and obscure cases indicate that the trauma and coloniality continue to affect the present.

The fall of Suharto's dictatorship in 1998 led to a need for alternative narratives of history and memory in Indonesia. This remains an ongoing task. The current wave of exploration brings new perspectives and attempts to understand the past. In this context, the intricate legacy of the post-dictatorship era and Indonesia's long colonial history continue to resonate in contemporary society. Through a poetic and meta-fictional approach, Kusno’s work aims to offer an abstract experience of this complex mix. He delves into the unspoken, unheard, and unseen aspects of the matrix that lies between history, fiction, and memory.

Reversal and Terra Incognita are parts of the Phantoms video series, which are complementary. Both moving-image works are under the same Indonesian title Luka dan Bisa Kubawa Berlari (Wounds and Venom I Carry as I am Running) ¹ , produced in 2022 the Han Nefkens Foundation – Loop Barcelona, in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing; MoCA TAIPEI; ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur; Centre d'Art Contemporain, Genève; and Art Hub Copenhagen. The third part of this series is an ongoing research by the artist, a work in progress. In this series, Kusno worked with the jathilan trance dancer community in Imogiri to portray the people's conception of time and organic cultural resistance against the idea of high culture centered in the Javanese elite feudal circle. The state of trance enables dancers to express and release their repressed experience freely, liberated from language and order. At the same time, jathilan could be seen as a space where the past and future come across briefly. In a state of trance, people believed that a dancer's body could embody ancestral spirits and, on some occasions, the visions of the future in temporary moments.

^Note1: The Indonesian title Luka dan Bisa Kubawa Berlari is derived from the poem Semangat (spirit) by Indonesian poet Chairil Anwar (1922-1949). The poet's spirit represents the spirit of the revolution, the resolute will to wrest free from the experience of being colonized. The artist deliberately uses the same title for his installation art exhibited in the Rijksmuseum (2022), where he worked with parts of the Rijksmuseum collection. The title signifies his long project working with the idea of dismantling colonial nostalgia and heritage.