POST STRATA

Reflecting on this year’s Art Jog theme: “PREDICTION”, I began to ponder our future in light of the latest scientific climate projections. The ongoing 6th mass extinction, instigated by human activity, threatens countless lands, seas, species, and even Homo sapiens itself. This makes me question if humanity were to vanish, what legacy would contemporary society leave behind?

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To comprehend the past, scientists like archaeologists and paleontologists examine the multiple strata of soil to unearth eons of history, revealing insights such as fossils, geological events, biological activity, and artifacts.

The Earth holds memories, with each period of its existence encrypted into the layers that constitute our present ground. Our past lies beneath our feet, while our future stretches above. Each geological layer's characteristics fluctuate according to the environment’s specificity and biological activity. Reflecting on our Anthropocene society, I ponder what will constitute the geological layer representing contemporary humanity’s epoch.

Our culture and social communication, largely based on digital data, are ephemeral, destined to vanish in a few years. With the planet's population continually rising, we prioritize quantity over quality, resulting in modern infrastructure predominantly constructed from low-quality materials, susceptible to erosion within decades. Our lifestyle, characterized by rapid, inexpensive consumption and sustained by our self-created material, plastic, is already pervading the entire Earth. Plastic envelops us, incessantly fragmenting into minuscule particles, merging with and polluting our ecosystem like a monstrous entity we've unleashed and lost control over.

Fragments of concrete, brick, tiles, and plastic will predominantly compose our geological time. These insignificant materials will constitute humanity's enduring legacy, molding our memories into fossils shaped like a monster.

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My artistic practice uniquely involved creating these fossils using only construction debris found near my studio and recycled plastic to craft this "future fossil." Consequently, my color palette was quite limited, which allowed me to delve deeper into texture exploration by mastering the scagliola technique, an ancient method of replicating the appearance of stone.

During my experimentation with dust and fragments, crushing broken pieces of concrete and terracotta, I was reminded that everything is formed from particles and will eventually return to that state—such is the cycle of life. These works emphasize an aspect of nature that is transformation, that defies inertia; indeed, nothing remains, not even humanity. 

By losing our connection to nature, anthropocentrism has caused us to forget evolution and our spiritual perspective. My thoughts often drift to Naga Antaboga, the Javanese spirit of the Earth, hoping that his memory will awaken us and help him to restore magnificent kingdom.