Jakarta Azure
2024. Eindhoven (NL).Residents of Jakarta have been grappling with the air pollution issue for decades now, yet the government did not show concerns although readings in the recent years show that the air inside the city is hazardous and dangerous, especially for the elderly and children. As recent as 2023, residents have noticed the presence of smog on clear days, with the sky tinted in grey despite the lack of clouds. The number of people, especially children, admitted to the hospital due to respiratory issues increased significantly in recent years, with hospitals and clinics prescribing oxygenation as the first aid to such cases. The government only started to show concern when then-president Joko Widodo was seen coughing in public, although the citizens of Jakarta had sued the government two years prior, filing a lawsuit against the government for their failure to provide clean air for the residents. Despite that, the government has provided little to no solutions or support for its citizens. Residents of Jakarta and its surrounding areas have fallen victim to the air pollution, especially people who live in dwellings that open to the exterior, a typical spatial feature in Indonesian architecture.
Jakarta Azure addresses the air pollution problem in a satirical way, advertising the construction of a series of apartment complexes that serve as an air filter for the city. The luxurious apartment complex, with its target market being people from the upper class, is designed to make its residents experience what that of the current Jakarta residents affected by the ongoing air pollution.
It seems comedic and ironic that the policy-makers and business-owners related to the air pollution are the ones least affected, as they barricade their mansions with tall fences and lush vegetation, while continuously using air conditioning equipments and air purifiers to purify the air in their houses, as well as commuting from one place to another in the comfort of their private cars. Yet, these are the same people who are given the platform to criticize the air pollution that is happening, leaving the voices of the people truly affected by it to not be heard by those who need to hear them.
Whale Tycoon
2024. Eindhoven (NL). Collaborative project with Cissy Zhang, Jonghoo Jeong, and Léane Gorgette.
Focusing on whales’ communication system using frequencies as a means of information exchange compared to the speculations in the stock market, which can be described as expectations about the future market conditions, similar to gambling. We explored this idea by making a game with the aim to draw a more distributed, networked and collective exchange process in which different beings participate in shaping and being shaped by the environment within which they coexist. To do so we imagined the migration journey of the whales, adding positive and negative encounters that influence and affect the whole ecosystem.
There are 4 players with different lives: the pregnant whale (4 hearts), the juvenile (2 hearts), the adult (3 hearts), and the mother & baby (3 hearts). The pregnant goes first, followed by the adult, the juvenile, and then the mother & baby. The game is won when everyone reaches the end, but it is lost when the juvenile or the pregnant whale dies.
The board is made of 40 boxes with different zones, corresponding to a real life situation that whales encounter in their annual migration.We drew on totemic elements to design the entire board. Whales have always represented the mysterious power of nature to the aborigines since ancient times.
The dice concept is a digital dice that plays a whale sound and shows the number that the player has to go. The sound is the currency used to broadcast information that guides the whales during their migration.
There are feeding zones where the whale can eat shrimps, krills, or planktons to give them energy to go. Information zones give players advantages or losses. They can take an information card, or get herded by Sea Shepherds, mating, go into a water flow, or even get their ear wax checked.
Danger zones will hinder the journey. Players must be careful, because they can lose their life in the danger zones (oil spill, nuclear zone, ship propeller, etc).
This is not about winning or competition like monopoly. Players must work together so members of their pod will not die and they can complete their migration.
Hilirisasi
2024. Eindhoven (NL).
Hilirisasi is the Indonesian term for “downstreaming”, denoting the transformation of raw materials into refined products, thereby enhancing their value compared to their initial state as low-priced raw materials. It is considered an attempt to strengthen the national capacity in processing raw minerals. This initial research results in the representation of the narrative through batik, a traditional textile that is considered as a national cultural identity in Indonesia.
Each fabric represents a different province, with a traditional visual language pertaining to that area. The logo of the mining companies operating in those regions are embedded into each fabric, its existence subtle to represent how their invasive nature is mostly unknown to those who do not come from or do not reside in the region. The fabrics are then dyed using the powder of the very minerals extracted: bauxite and nickel.
A Violent Label
2024. Eindhoven (NL)
A Violent Label looks into the use of QR codes as an explanatory medium for artworks in a museum, which allows visitors to learn more about the artwork and the history behind it. Taking the Emil Bührle Collection of the Kunsthaus Zurich as the case study, the project examines how the QR code in the collection hides the violent history that the artworks possess.
A Violent Label explores the creation of a counter-document, an anti-thesis to what a museum label is. The project places importance in the historical, political, and social context of the artwork, rather than the artwork itself. Several pages of articles related to provenance research and its importance, as related to the artwork, are placed atop each other. The painting holds little importance in this installation, placed behind the layers of information and history that must be read and turned by the visitors.
The presentation of the project A Violent Label uses “Champ de coquelicots près de Vétheuil” (1879) by Claude Monet as a precedent.