Interpreting Irwan Ahmett, Tita Salina and Mark Teh's smiles
“In fact, smiles disappeared from Java more than 30,000 years ago.”
“Apocalyptic Smile” Irwan Ahmett (Iwang) & Tita Salina’s latest performance work. It derives from their childhood experience of a total solar eclipse on June 11, 1983 and the government information about the eclipse. The eclipse was brief but left a deep impression on Tita and Iwang mainly because it was said that looking at an eclipse could cause blindness for the rest of their lives.
The performance is divided into five stages, namely Sun, Mourning, Inclusion, Linguistic, Evidence. Supported by various forms of archives, objects, visual aids, and video footage, Iwang and Tita question the gesture of smiling that we normally encountered before the pandemic through historical events, information, and myths about repression and exploitation.
In this BINGKIS, Iwang, Tita and curator Mark Teh will re-investigate the context of making “Apocalyptic Smile” while highlighting the “witness” aspect of the performance.
Before the discussion, please watch their performance on
here. This work is realized with the generous contribution of ROH Projects.
To the video recording
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