Dealing in Distance – Exhibition
Mini Festival|Dealing in Distance is a mini traveling festival that explores themes of diaspora, migration, and identity in distance.
- Language English and Indonesian
- Price Free of charge
In Bali, the festival concept is “KAMU DARI MANA (WHERE ARE YOU FROM?)”, stemming from philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah’s probe into the query. As multiple stories and perspectives coexist, the programme invites you to experience artistic practice arising through encounters—often uneven and unresolved—between contemporary Southeast Asian diasporic, Indonesian, and Balinese artists. These encounters navigate identity with care while learning to listen beyond the visible through collective home-making exercises/practices, the reclamation of “home” and the creation of communities bound by shared sensibilities, the festival proposes alternative ways of being together.
Exhibition tour will be held in Masa Masa on Saturday, 24 January 2026, at 4.30 PM WITA.
Exhibition Details:
CushCush Gallery
Jl. Teuku Umar Gang Rajawali no. 1A, Denpasar
22 January–25 January 2025
10 AM–21 PM WITA
Made in Rice
Artist: Thu Hiền Hoàng, multi-channel video installation, full HD, color, stereo, 2021, 21 minutes.
Made in Rice, a multi-channel performance video by Hien Hoang, emerges from her encounter with racial discrimination at Hamburg Central Station. Using rice as metaphor, it confronts Western projections onto Asian bodies and the persistent myth of the “good immigrant.”
Performers: Soon-Hwoa Jeong, Kuoko, Moe Gotoda
Director of Photography and First Camera: Rike Malottke
Second Camera: Robert Thomann
Light: Peter Würzer
Sound recording & installation: Marcela Leon Espinoza
Music composer: Tam Thi Pham
Costume: Sanja Philipp, Cecile de Buc
Make up: Sanja Philipp
Editor and Postproduction: Oona Braaker
Sound design & Mastering: Max Gausepohl
Asisstants: Hani Wibowo, Ivan Lüt and Camilo Bueno
Special support: Jasmin Luu
Projection: Patric Pappenberg, Sören Koswig
Installation construction: Daniel Pietschmann
Script, Set design, Director & Producer: Hiền Hoàng
Funded by Hamburg Ministry for Culture and Media, 2021
Fountains of a high mountain, a sweet dream
Artist: Phạm Minh Đức,
Supported by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, one table, two chairs, porcelain fountain, table cloth, lily scent, water, sound, ceramic orchids, 2024, 25 minutes (sound piece).
,,Fountains of A High Mountain and A Sweet Dream” invites collective reflection on memory’s persistence amid historical erasure. Navigating fragility and resistance, it addresses the reproductive injustices endured by Vietnamese contract laborers in the GDR—women carrying grief alone, far from home and those they loved.
“Willst du mit uns gehen?” (“Would you come with us?”)
Artist: Zelin Seah, mixed media on duvet covers, oil palm empty fruit bunch, photograph, 2017/2025.
This work reflects on being a Southeast Asian migrant in Germany—visible through labor, invisible in society. Beginning with blankets covering homeless bodies, the artist collects and reworks them into installations echoing displacement. Filled with palm-oil waste and found materials, the blankets mirror overlooked yet essential Southeast Asian labor, revealing tensions between EU ecological policies and lived realities.
- Compiled and summarized from the artist’s sharing
What remains, reminds
Artist: Nindya Nareswari, durational light installation using cyanotyped rice paper and raw rice, 2026.
“What remains, reminds” uses food and light to bridge the distance between two homes. Rice paper becomes a fragile yet resilient vessel for memory, holding traces of sunlight. The shifting light acknowledges absence through what remains, its subtle movements turning impermanence into rhythm, an invitation to embrace life’s transience.
Masa Masa
Jl. Subak Telaga I No.9, Gianyar
22–25 January 2025
9 AM–10 PM WITA
Distant Memories of the Void
Artist: Bilawa Ade Respati & Ernese Csornai, saron Pelog, Demung Pelog, Peking Pelog, Solenoids, Arduino Boards, Projector and Screen, 2024, ca. 30 mins, loop.
Distant Memories of the Void is a gamelan automaton and visual installation of shadow puppetry, a performance without performers. Through sound, video, and light, it evokes memories of the “One Great Void,” graspable only through metaphor, imagining a symbolic ritual where spirituality exists without the human body.
General concept and music: Bilawa Ade Respati
Visual concept and video: Emese Csornai
Technologist: Adrian Benigno Latupeirissa
Created with project fund from Initiative Neue Musik (2024) and the support of Haus der Indonesischen Kulturen in Berlin.
We are grateful for the advice given by Ki Sujarwo Joko Prehatin, Ki Sigit Totocarito, Elisha Orcarus Allasso, Trinawangwulan Sudarga, Bram Palgunadi, Marius Bratoveanu, and Nina Wesemann.
Muyas (Inheritance)
Artist: Jules Leaño, mp4 video, scanned 16mm film, 2024, 6:52 minutes.
Muyas uses film-emulsion transfers of pop culture, family photos, food and trinkets to construct the artist's imagined Philippines, an image shaped by family stories and orientalist Western media. A voiceover grapples with her mother’s tongue, echoing the artist’s search for language and the fragmented experience of diaspora.
The film was presented at festivals such as Jihlava International Documentary Festival 2024, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2025, and screened extensively throughout Europe and Southeast Asia.
"Iba yon dagat" ("on the other side of that sea")
Artist: Jules Leaño, installation - scanned super8 found footage, modified telephone, furniture, 2026, loop/20 minutes.
On the Other Side of that Sea reflects on Filipino migration shaped by colonial legacies and economics policies under Marcos regime, where becoming an OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) is often the only path. Through family narratives, decaying film and a US-trip images slowly destroyed by bacteria, it contemplates love, sacrifice, and the quiet emotions carried across oceans.
hand to hand, a conversation
Artist: Woven Kolektif (Mashara Wachjudy and Bridie Gillman), collected fabric, steel, chain, 2021.
Hello From Pakem
Artist: Woven Kolektif (Kartika Suharto-Martin and Kyati Suharto-Martin), sound composition, bricks, woven mat, speakers, 2021.
Developed in collaborative exchanges between collective members, these tactile meets audio works formed lines of connections within Woven’s collective practice. The presentation formed a space of its own where the invitation of spending time and listening and looking for details was open and extended to visitors. Bridie Gillman & Mashara Wachjudy’s work hand to hand, a conversation, arches around, creating an intimate space like the arm of a friend or family member, holding visitors close to listen to Kartika and Kyati Suharto-Martin’s sound composition Hello From Pakem. Hence a space was created to trace memories - imaginings of gatherings along with its conversations.
Cuma Penasaran
Artist: Amal Purnama, audio & Video (captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers), 2023.
“Cuma Penasaran” (read: Just Curious) is Amal Purnama’s eagerness to find and compile undirected conversations between friends that Amal recorded. Within hanging out with them in public spaces: campus, village alley, park, warung and art collective spaces, they speak of Order Baru (New Order), Reformation and Post Reformation perspectives from the millenials’ generation. It is an invitation to listen to stories and memories that deal with distant individual and collective memories around Indonesia at the time.
Exhibition tour will be held in Masa Masa on Saturday, 24 January 2026, at 4.30 PM WITA.
Exhibition Details:
CushCush Gallery
Jl. Teuku Umar Gang Rajawali no. 1A, Denpasar
22 January–25 January 2025
10 AM–21 PM WITA
Made in Rice
Artist: Thu Hiền Hoàng, multi-channel video installation, full HD, color, stereo, 2021, 21 minutes.
Made in Rice, a multi-channel performance video by Hien Hoang, emerges from her encounter with racial discrimination at Hamburg Central Station. Using rice as metaphor, it confronts Western projections onto Asian bodies and the persistent myth of the “good immigrant.”
Performers: Soon-Hwoa Jeong, Kuoko, Moe Gotoda
Director of Photography and First Camera: Rike Malottke
Second Camera: Robert Thomann
Light: Peter Würzer
Sound recording & installation: Marcela Leon Espinoza
Music composer: Tam Thi Pham
Costume: Sanja Philipp, Cecile de Buc
Make up: Sanja Philipp
Editor and Postproduction: Oona Braaker
Sound design & Mastering: Max Gausepohl
Asisstants: Hani Wibowo, Ivan Lüt and Camilo Bueno
Special support: Jasmin Luu
Projection: Patric Pappenberg, Sören Koswig
Installation construction: Daniel Pietschmann
Script, Set design, Director & Producer: Hiền Hoàng
Funded by Hamburg Ministry for Culture and Media, 2021
Fountains of a high mountain, a sweet dream
Artist: Phạm Minh Đức,
Supported by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, one table, two chairs, porcelain fountain, table cloth, lily scent, water, sound, ceramic orchids, 2024, 25 minutes (sound piece).
,,Fountains of A High Mountain and A Sweet Dream” invites collective reflection on memory’s persistence amid historical erasure. Navigating fragility and resistance, it addresses the reproductive injustices endured by Vietnamese contract laborers in the GDR—women carrying grief alone, far from home and those they loved.
“Willst du mit uns gehen?” (“Would you come with us?”)
Artist: Zelin Seah, mixed media on duvet covers, oil palm empty fruit bunch, photograph, 2017/2025.
This work reflects on being a Southeast Asian migrant in Germany—visible through labor, invisible in society. Beginning with blankets covering homeless bodies, the artist collects and reworks them into installations echoing displacement. Filled with palm-oil waste and found materials, the blankets mirror overlooked yet essential Southeast Asian labor, revealing tensions between EU ecological policies and lived realities.
- Compiled and summarized from the artist’s sharing
What remains, reminds
Artist: Nindya Nareswari, durational light installation using cyanotyped rice paper and raw rice, 2026.
“What remains, reminds” uses food and light to bridge the distance between two homes. Rice paper becomes a fragile yet resilient vessel for memory, holding traces of sunlight. The shifting light acknowledges absence through what remains, its subtle movements turning impermanence into rhythm, an invitation to embrace life’s transience.
Masa Masa
Jl. Subak Telaga I No.9, Gianyar
22–25 January 2025
9 AM–10 PM WITA
Distant Memories of the Void
Artist: Bilawa Ade Respati & Ernese Csornai, saron Pelog, Demung Pelog, Peking Pelog, Solenoids, Arduino Boards, Projector and Screen, 2024, ca. 30 mins, loop.
Distant Memories of the Void is a gamelan automaton and visual installation of shadow puppetry, a performance without performers. Through sound, video, and light, it evokes memories of the “One Great Void,” graspable only through metaphor, imagining a symbolic ritual where spirituality exists without the human body.
General concept and music: Bilawa Ade Respati
Visual concept and video: Emese Csornai
Technologist: Adrian Benigno Latupeirissa
Created with project fund from Initiative Neue Musik (2024) and the support of Haus der Indonesischen Kulturen in Berlin.
We are grateful for the advice given by Ki Sujarwo Joko Prehatin, Ki Sigit Totocarito, Elisha Orcarus Allasso, Trinawangwulan Sudarga, Bram Palgunadi, Marius Bratoveanu, and Nina Wesemann.
Muyas (Inheritance)
Artist: Jules Leaño, mp4 video, scanned 16mm film, 2024, 6:52 minutes.
Muyas uses film-emulsion transfers of pop culture, family photos, food and trinkets to construct the artist's imagined Philippines, an image shaped by family stories and orientalist Western media. A voiceover grapples with her mother’s tongue, echoing the artist’s search for language and the fragmented experience of diaspora.
The film was presented at festivals such as Jihlava International Documentary Festival 2024, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2025, and screened extensively throughout Europe and Southeast Asia.
"Iba yon dagat" ("on the other side of that sea")
Artist: Jules Leaño, installation - scanned super8 found footage, modified telephone, furniture, 2026, loop/20 minutes.
On the Other Side of that Sea reflects on Filipino migration shaped by colonial legacies and economics policies under Marcos regime, where becoming an OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) is often the only path. Through family narratives, decaying film and a US-trip images slowly destroyed by bacteria, it contemplates love, sacrifice, and the quiet emotions carried across oceans.
hand to hand, a conversation
Artist: Woven Kolektif (Mashara Wachjudy and Bridie Gillman), collected fabric, steel, chain, 2021.
Hello From Pakem
Artist: Woven Kolektif (Kartika Suharto-Martin and Kyati Suharto-Martin), sound composition, bricks, woven mat, speakers, 2021.
Developed in collaborative exchanges between collective members, these tactile meets audio works formed lines of connections within Woven’s collective practice. The presentation formed a space of its own where the invitation of spending time and listening and looking for details was open and extended to visitors. Bridie Gillman & Mashara Wachjudy’s work hand to hand, a conversation, arches around, creating an intimate space like the arm of a friend or family member, holding visitors close to listen to Kartika and Kyati Suharto-Martin’s sound composition Hello From Pakem. Hence a space was created to trace memories - imaginings of gatherings along with its conversations.
Cuma Penasaran
Artist: Amal Purnama, audio & Video (captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers), 2023.
“Cuma Penasaran” (read: Just Curious) is Amal Purnama’s eagerness to find and compile undirected conversations between friends that Amal recorded. Within hanging out with them in public spaces: campus, village alley, park, warung and art collective spaces, they speak of Order Baru (New Order), Reformation and Post Reformation perspectives from the millenials’ generation. It is an invitation to listen to stories and memories that deal with distant individual and collective memories around Indonesia at the time.
